by V. Theia
But ten minutes later I was still feeling like crap.
Heaviness pushed on my chest and all I could think about was the tasks I was unable to succeed at.
The one good thing I had in my life, even if I kept him at arm’s length was perhaps my one bright spot and I hadn’t accepted it.
Every conversation with Gray resulted in a form of happiness. Usually giggling at something he said or the way he openly flirted and didn’t care if I was mean back to him.
Everything about Gray was happiness and patience.
I called his number before I could change my mind.
I had those stupid cried for too long hiccup-sobs going on as he answered.
“Hey, sweetheart.”
“Gray…”
It was all I could manage past the goose egg of emotion locking up my throat and the wounded animal sound. I caught the transition in his voice, down shifting from his initial joviality to serious in a second as I hunkered into my knees trying desperately to rein myself in because the longer I took the longer mom was alone and likely to go into meltdown again.
“Baby. What’s going on? Do you need me?”
About a week later when I’d stopped hiccupping and rubbed a hand over my face I managed to form words that became a fully-fledged sentence.
God, I hated when that overtook me. Anxiety could go screw itself, seriously.
I was over it.
“I’m at home, but I have to head out. Mom’s house has lost power and she’s a mess.” And when I heard his sigh I became embarrassed for needing to hear him to feel okay again. My neck and chest heated as I picked myself up off the floor and went along to the bathroom to be greeted by my blotchy face.
Great. Just great.
It wasn’t enough that anxiety stole every part of my confidence it had to make me look like a crying hag at the same time. I did the best I could one handed to wash my face before I re-grabbed everything I needed. I did this with Gray talking in my ear, telling me it was going to be okay, and to take deep breaths and he would talk for as long as I needed. His intense tone did what I’d hoped and brought me back down a level.
It was true, just listening to him settled me.
“Sorry. I just wanted to hear you. I shouldn’t have—” I got no further.
His voice came out rough and forced. “You should have. Always, India, do you understand? Always call me. Now tell me where you’re headed, I’ll meet you there.”
Gray at my mom’s? That wouldn’t happen at the best of times, let alone right now while she was unpredictably muddled. Besides, she didn’t do well around strangers and I was trying to lessen her stress not add to it. “India. Address, baby-girl.”
I rattled it off without thinking. “Don’t come though, okay? I’ll call if I need anything.” I wouldn’t, most probably. “Maybe for a ride home?”
“Of course, anything. Call me when you get there? I can send a car for you now.”
“I’ll be fine, really. And thanks, Gray. I didn’t mean to dump this on you again.”
I heard his smile. “Dump away, sweetheart. You know I have a thing for you.”
Sigh. I did.
And it wasn’t fair to him that I was keeping him on a string, was it? Because that’s what I was doing. He’d told me plainly he wanted me; dating, fucking, whatever we called it, he wanted it from me.
Coward that I was, kept him at arm’s length most of the time, until of course I fell apart then he was the first person to come to mind to make it better.
I was a colossal using bitch.
“Will you stay on the phone until I reach the ferry?” See? Using bitch. My brow puckered, and my stomach muscles scrunched with that ugh feeling.
Not quite dread but a bad feeling nonetheless because his yes came instantly and I was happy for it.
Happy to use him to keep me steady.
“What’s that noise?” I asked.
“Car door.”
“Do you have places to get to? I can let you go.”
“Nothing is more important than talking to you, India. You get your mom’s power sorted and then we can have dinner tonight.” He suggested, warming my insides with a smile.
“You mean you’re not going to have it delivered to me this time?”
His smiling voice was so fucking sexy. I could imagine him sitting like a sultan in the back of his Bentley grinning like he does, smug and just.
I hoped like hell he couldn’t sense my grin.
No sense giving a smug boy like him authority over me.
Not unless we ever get to a bed that is.
In bed he could boss me all night long.
“Thought I’d play delivery guy myself. You gonna invite me in?”
Well if this didn’t sound like the beginning of a soft-core porno…
The rest of the conversation went in the same vein. Back and forth bantering and yet again Gray had dug me out of an emotional tunnel.
I seriously owed him a rattle-his-brain blowjob soon.
~*~*~
I was rethinking that fucking blowjob as I turned onto my mom’s street and a familiar black car sat at the curb.
Oh. My. God. He’d come when I’d told him not to.
If I opened that car door and he dared smile at me I was going to punch him, I swear I was.
With a jerk and an almost growl I had the passenger door wrenched open. Only to find the back seat completely empty and Josiah smiling over the seats at me.
“Where is he?”
“That would be inside,” he indicated to mom’s front door and I felt my chest cave in.
He was inside?
No, he couldn’t be.
“How long have you been here?”
“About twenty-five minutes.”
“I’m gonna kill him!” I slammed the door, not before I saw Josiah grinning.
God almighty. I was up the short steps and inside in seconds. “Ma?” I yelled. If she was having one of her meltdowns there was no other course for it, I’d have to severe ties with Gray. Letting him see the truth of my family was a no-no.
Panic swelled in my throat. Seconds ticked by.
“In here, sweetie.”
Okay. She sounded calm.
I found her making coffee. Smiling. Handing Gray a mug.
He smiled at me too as if it was normal he was standing in my mom’s kitchen.
I realized she’d used the coffee machine.
The power was on.
“What … how … what are you doing here?”
“Manners, India! Your nice man kept me company while we waited for you. Did you know he has an engineering degree? He fixed the lights in no time.”
An engineering degree? He fixed the fucking electric?
“Just needed a fuse change, that was all.” He filled in the blanks as I wide-eyed stared at him and then at mom who was being … not herself as she moved around the kitchen drinking her own coffee and pulling things out of the fridge.
She was dressed even.
I needed to sit. Where the hell was a chair?
Gray moved forward and caught me by the arm, before his slid around my waist. Holding me close and firm. A crazy part of me wanted to cuddle in and lean on him, but we all know I wasn’t going to do that.
I was my own worst enemy.
“What are you doing here, Gray?”
“I wanted to help.”
Again.
I didn’t know whether to be relieved he’d taken the decision out of my hands or fucking furious.
A mix of the two, I think.
Gray Ellison doesn’t fuck around when he upped his game.
That gorgeous ass. I couldn’t even stay mad at him for a minute when his smile torched me up inside brighter than Christmas lights and the pressure of his fingers at the base of my spine almost had me moaning in my mother’s kitchen. I slipped my arm around his waist and then he cuddled me in, kissed the top of my head. God, it felt so good. So right.
“Okay, how mad are you?�
� He asked some time later when I told mom I’d walk him out. He dared to cheeky-boy smirk as I glared up at him.
“Extremely,” I answered in my sharpest tone, lowering to sit on the top step. Gray followed suit by folding his taller frame beside me, only his legs almost reached the bottom step when he stretched them in front.
We were thigh to thigh as he cocked his head to the side close enough I could count every eyelash cradling his beautiful eyes.
If only I wasn’t so damn attracted, being mad at him would be easier.
I’d watched my mom for the last hour blossom in front of my eyes. This was a woman I hadn’t seen in years and in the space of sixty-fucking-minutes talking with Gray she was giggling like a school girl, engaged in conversation and even agreeing to come into the city soon for dinner with us.
Oh yeah, with us. He’d finagled that damn smart telling mom he was my man when he turned up uninvited at the door.
“You scared more white hair onto my fucking head, India. I had to do something. I couldn’t sit in my office and listen to you crying and do nothing.”
My eyes swept over his charcoal hair dusted lightly here and there with his salt and pepper strands. He didn’t look any more aged to me.
I took my gaze to my clasped hands, stung with embarrassment. “I shouldn’t have called you.”
“Don’t start that bullshit. You call me. Whenever. Any-fucking-time, India.”
The growl coming out of his lips made me squeeze my thighs together.
“Think you’re so clever, don’t you, sugar daddy? Bossing me around like you’re—”
“Your man,” he interjected. His smirk and twinkling eyes didn’t go unnoticed even if I failed at scowling at him.
I sighed and leaned my shoulder against his hard chest.
“Thank you. For what you did in there. I don’t know what you said to her, but that was … yeah, she hasn’t been that animated in a while.” I confessed quietly, making sure I kept my eyes in front of me. “You and your damn handsome face bewitching women wherever you go.”
Gray laughed lightly and kissed the top of my head again. A sigh escaped me again because I loved the affectionate gesture more than I realized.
“I told her I was trying hard to romance her daughter and if she let me check what was wrong with the electricity it would go a long way to winning you. She was delighted and couldn’t invite me in fast enough,” he boasted.
“You con artist.” My elbow met his ribs.
Since we were cozied up together he slid his arm around me, took my hand in his and ran his lips gently over my knuckles. I shivered but didn’t pull away. He rubbed my arm and I couldn’t claim it didn’t calm my jittering nerves, but it wasn’t the only reason I leaned into it.
“And then we got chatting. I like her, India.”
I held my breath, turning my face to look at him. Mirth had left Gray’s eyes and he kissed the tip of my nose. “She told me about her therapy when I got back from the hardware store, she held the flash light and I replaced the fuses, and we talked some more.”
“She did?” Shock stung my nose. I would not cry.
“She realizes she’s a strain on you, sweetheart. Financially and emotionally.”
“It’s okay. She’s getting better,” I hoped anyway so it wasn’t an outright lie. “She’s my mom, Gray, she’s all I have. I’m never not going to be here for her.”
After a minute’s silence of sitting comfortably in the arms of a man who kept on rescuing me … and now my mom, Gray kissed my forehead.
Inside my chest my heart began to twine around my ribcage.
An irregular knocking sounded in my ears as he lifted and deposited me onto his lap, using a hand on my outer thigh to keep me right there.
“What?” I grinned slightly into his flamed eyes, “do you want me to tell you what I want for Christmas?”
“You can in a minute, and only if what you want is me,” he answered with a similar grin while he moved strands of hair from my cheek. “If you promise not to get mad.”
Ut oh. Eyes narrowed. “What did you do?”
He dared to smirk.
“Grayson…”
“I’m going to hear you say my name just like that when I’m buried so fucking deep in you, I promise soon.”
I pinched his earlobe at the same time my thighs clenched to keep in all the sudden aroused wetness. “Tell me.”
“Linda told me the bills you’re paying.” Well wasn’t she just chatty suddenly? It was unbelievable my mom had taken to a stranger as quickly as she had to Gray. She even hated the neighbor dropping by and we’d known Sasha and her family for years. “So,” he stretched, fingers toying with my bare thigh where my shorts cut off. “Those bills are now being redirected to me.”
I heard his words, I even watched his supple mouth moving and the way the dark whiskers on his face rippled with his strong jawline. But I didn’t quite grasp what he was saying until… “WHAT? You can’t do that,” I tried to slide off his lap and he held fast.
“I can, and I did. It’s done, India. You were fucking killing yourself worrying over money. All the utility bills will now be paid directly from my account.”
Those intense swoons I had for him a moment ago popped like a ten-day old balloon.
All I could seem to find in me was to repeat what I’d already said. “You can’t do that, Gray. You don’t even know us, you don’t know my mom.”
“I know enough,” He didn’t seem pissed at the reminder we’d known each other five minutes. His affectionate tone, the one he used with me a lot, rushed through me and zapped thirty percent of my anger. I stopped struggling to get off his lap and sat there, statue still, and mute. Mulling over just how I would kill him.
Were there places on the island I could dump one 6’4” male with shoulders like cut glass and a hard chest I could break walnuts on?
Okay, if I was describing his physique in those terms I wasn’t as mad as initially thought.
Control was something I found difficult to hand over to someone else.
Control was something I liked and needed to feel normal.
And normal hadn’t truly been present in my family life since Jack went missing seven years ago.
Having Gray take something off my plate, even as my belly congealed with panic and with anger to decline any help, his help most of all, on the tip of my tongue. To tell him this was my responsibility and he could go to hell for thinking he could boss me around. I still folded like limp paper with a sigh. Leaning into his bigger body, resting my forehead against his shoulder just for a minute.
I’d take a minute then rip him a new one I decided and felt better about it.
No one had the right to boss me around.
Not even sexy as hell shoemaker sugar daddy’s.
But then his fingers, those sneaky little monster’s feeling so good toured the length of my spine over the knots and tight muscles, massaging as he went, and I turned to liquid, curling deeper into Gray with a startled whimper.
And those minutes turned into five, and seven.
Gray murmured into my hair, his hands continuous on my back and up to my nape. “I only want to take care of you, baby-girl. Not control you. Never that. I hate watching you struggle, and now I’ve seen what it’s like for your mom. Let me do this for you.” I found myself in a lethargic state nodding my head to his throat and I heard his whispered “thank you.”
I watched as his fingertip traced the thin blue veins along my inner wrist. Back and forth as birds chirped, and cars drove by and life went on I was mesmerized in one finger on my arm. When he leaned down and placed a kiss to my palm then folded my fingers in around the kiss I didn’t know how to feel.
In such a short time Gray had become the person I confided in, turned to for safety and to lean on and I hadn’t acknowledged it.
How our nightly conversations were more than gentle flirting.
He recharged my heart as easily as he’d turned the lights back on.
He’s not even my lover, but what we shared between us felt so much more intimate than any ten-minute churn of naked bodies searching for a fast hit of bliss.
I liked this.
I liked feeling tiny on his lap while he stroked my muscles and I could breathe into his neck.
I shouldn’t like it, yet I did. So, much.
“Don’t,” he whispered next to my ear, trailing fingers over the knobs of my spine, then they slipped under my shirt to rest at the very base of my back where my skin felt on fire, “don’t pull away from me.”
How did he know?
“This is crazy, Gray.” I said quietly. My own fingers did some wandering against the fine hair at the nape of his neck.
I wanted to ask what are we doing?
Why me?
Why us?
What did I offer him that kept him around? We weren’t intimate … I wanted to. Badly. In fact even now, when I was slightly cross with him my vagina still wanted to make very bad decisions on top of him.
I’ve never been the self-doubting type, not over my sexuality and attracting a short-term partner. It might come across as a big ego, but I knew even when my emotional state lunged a dive from a tall building and anxiety took my wheel, I could rely on my overt, garish personality to level me out again and mask a whole wealth of inadequacies. To give me a boost of confidence even if it was as fake as mom’s Christmas tree I dragged out of the basement every December.
Some days you have to deal only in fake to get through.
Fake it until you make it. Isn’t that the saying?
Doubts crept in but his warm breath against my cheek pushed them out just as fast and before I knew it, I’d lifted my head, my lungs shallowed out seeing the flare of lust in his eyes then I crashed my mouth down over his.
Gray grunted, whether in surprise or want. It didn’t deter me. Not when I licked across the full span of his full lips, asking silently for them to open and let me in.
Needed his taste.
Needed so bad to have his tongue exploring mine and he didn’t disappoint. I might have kissed him, but it was Gray who took over.