Manhattan Sugar (From Manhattan Book 1)

by V. Theia

  “That day at the café. I wasn’t meant to stop for lunch. I was only walking by.” I confessed. Come to think of it, that wasn’t even the route I took each day back to my office building. Not sure why I deviated, or to even walk instead of taking the car. “I saw you through the window. The café was full, and I only saw you, India.”

  Kissing her mound, she buckled and pulled at my hair, though I heard her gasp at my confession. “You see? This wasn’t something random with us, baby-girl.” Caressing her thighs, was both affection and something darker with my hunger clawing at my insides.

  She was everything, couldn’t she see that? We met for a reason.

  She was the other half of me.

  And I hoped like hell she felt the same way.

  Or I was buying rope and a basement until she felt the same way.

  “Grayson,” her voice wobbled and a flash of a second I recognized she was about to close off from me.

  I reared up to my feet, took her face in my two hands. Her hazel eyes searching mine for the truth. “You and I aren’t casual, baby. We were serious the second we locked eyes. You are the reason I’ve strived so hard my whole life. To get me to that very moment on a day nothing was going right, so I took a walk and I saw the most beautiful, vivacious blond pixie laughing through a pane of glass and she knocked me over with both her sassy, flirtatious tongue and the way her gaze delved deep into me like she’d been expecting me all along.”

  How was that for honest?

  “I was waiting for you too.” I told her seriously.

  For a woman who kept most everything locked inside an emotional vault it was difficult to guess to what she was thinking and how she’d react. My thumb traced her brow, down along her cheek, along the lips I craved.

  As I descended my head she pushed at my chest. At first, I thought it was her little game, she liked me to chase her, to even pin her under me so I grinned and advanced again.

  Only.

  “Stop, Gray.”

  I stopped.

  “Let me down.”

  “Sweetheart?” Confusion tugged deep in my belly, but the swirl of panic on her face soon filled in my blanks.

  Not fucking happening.

  I put my hands around her waist.

  India was breathing in sharp bursts.

  Something I’d said had put her in panic mode.

  “Breathe, baby. It’s okay.”

  “Let me down, Gray!” This time I let her shove me a step back, so she could hop down from the table and grab her discarded robe, her quick motions to jerk it on her arms meant it took her a second or two to achieve full coverage.

  What the fuck just happened?

  That deteriorated so fucking fast it made my head spin.

  Frustration stung my nose.

  I stepped in her way, using my height to stop her from leaving.

  “What’s happening, India? I told you I cared. I didn’t propose.”

  So, that was a shit thing to say, I realized a second too late when her hazel eyes fired off shots. I tried to hold her upper arms and she pulled away from me.

  “I know you’re not afraid of me. You’re the most fearless woman I’ve ever met.” I let my thumb stroke over her hammering pulse and she gave that half moan half cry again from the back of her throat. “Maybe you’re afraid of what I make you feel, hm?”

  More shots fired as her eyes sprang open, her irises masked by vivid green now, this time she did push me aside and I sighed, a tick working my jaw.

  I couldn’t get angry.

  Yet I felt it busting open my fucking lines of patience.

  Down low, between my legs where I was still erect, blood pulsed hot and hard, demanding I use sex to take power from her hands. I knew how much India loved me using force to hold her down, to make her come before she’s ready to. It’s when she’s at her sweetest when I’ve wrung her dry and left her pliable to emotions.

  I could do it. My fucking veins throbbed to do it. Push her face into the couch, fuck my fingers up into her soaked pussy from behind and demand she talk me through this sudden one-eighty turn from naked dinner to her shutting me out.

  She’d turned me into one exposed throbbing nerve and right then as I watched her switch on lamps, her ass twitching under the thin cotton as it rode up her exposed thighs and avoided my eyes … my touch, I wanted to drown her in my fucking need. Make her see there was nothing to fear in how I made her feel.

  She was everything of all and it gaped open a wound inside me to realize she couldn’t see it.

  “Talk to me, India.” His voice stroked through me in that way I imagine how crocodiles are hypnotized in those cruel animal shows you see on vacation. Like he’s running a stick over my sensitive points I froze for a second, my back to Gray and all I could think about was rewinding time and flinging myself at his arms.

  He cared for me.

  Really, fucking cared from the beginning. His confession spiked me in the heart. The heart I’m doing a piss-poor job of protecting from all kinds of feelings, especially the ones Gray was throwing at me.

  Girlfriend.

  Serious.

  It’s not much of a surprise and still I’m in the middle of the living room with my lungs on fire and my anxiety knocking on the door with a funnel cake and a bottle of wine.

  I swore, didn’t I? Not to care for anyone like this. This deeply. This fast. But I’m in so much emotional quick sand with Gray I have a second left of air before I’m dragged under … unsure what to do.

  If I care for him … and then lose him? I truly think it would break me.

  “I need a minute, okay?”

  “At least fucking look at me. What the hell happened?” Now his voice grated, and he had a right to be angry.

  I’m angry. I’m angry at myself.

  But I flipped it on him, turning slowly, I let my eyes blaze even as the sight of his confused frustration filled me with a sad sort of happiness.

  I didn’t want to hurt him, but I would … wouldn’t I?

  Eventually.

  I felt like a kid most days playing house.

  Though I’ve loved our time together, it’s taken him telling me I’m his reason for life and I’m in a salmon net, hesitant with this fear of giving myself permission to fall into the unknown.

  Maybe I should expediate the inevitable so if he’s angry he’d kick me out.

  Simple enough, right? Then why was my heart hurting?

  Why did I want to crawl into his lap and tell him I couldn’t help my stupid brain from reacting? And please be patience with me while I tried to catch up to his level of emotional maturity.

  “God, Gray. Will you give me a minute by myself without you in it.” My brain rolled out a punch of steam and not in any good kind of way that got my adrenalin revving like a Camaro engine.

  I was confused chaos.

  He was cool as ice. “And why is that?”

  “Because you’re too much and you make me insane and I need…”

  “You don’t need to be sane, baby-girl, not with me, but I’ll give you the space you need,” he kissed the side of my neck. “Don’t take too long, I miss you already.”

  Fuck, that man tied me into a pretzel shaped knot.

  It was about the most terrifying realization of my life.

  I deflated like a balloon.

  My control was whisper thin. I wanted to care … really care for Gray and yet I held back. I could have told him how my heart jumped out of my chest that first day seeing him. How I longed to crawl over the table and have him hold me because it felt like the right thing somehow to give this gorgeous stranger my everything I’d been hiding away for years.

  How is it I could meet someone in a café one day, and continually have it change the course of my miserable life day by day?

  Any other guy would have kicked my ass out for pulling that on them.

  But then, Gray was no ordinary guy.

  I trusted him implacably. It was myself I didn’t trust.

>   Isn’t trust half the battle of caring? … I couldn’t say the L word yet, couldn’t think it, but that’s what I meant.

  Taking the space I needed, I left him there.

  I turned to the one person who sounded surprised to hear from me.

  It wasn’t my best friend.

  “Ma?”

  “Sweetie? This is a surprise. Is everything okay?”

  This was a first because I never dumped my troubles on her.

  I would have called Sena usually, she was my go-to person and I realized lately why her, and I were such good friends. It was because she left me alone. She wasn’t clingy or demanding of my time. We could go weeks and not see each other then pick up right where we left off.

  Not sure really if that was a good or bad thing. That she sensed how emotionally closed off I was and didn’t pressure me to give more than I could afford. I wondered if it made me a shitty friend? She’d accepted me for me and never called me on it, when I suspected I wasn’t such a good of a friend to her as she’d needed in the past.

  “Yeah. Kinda. No.” I admitted. “Do you have a minute?”

  “All the minutes you need.”

  I was sure my brain had restless leg syndrome. It never stopped giving me shit. And then if the crushing inside my chest joined in it became a fucking party inside my body.

  “I have …boy trouble.”

  “Oh. Sweetie.” She sounded happy to hear it and I looked at my cell phone screen making sure I’d called the correct number.

  And no wonder she showed surprise.

  I’d never taken boys home to meet her.

  Only Gray.

  “Is it Gray? He’s such a good man, India. I really like him.”

  Yeah, me too, ma. That’s the problem.

  “I think I overreacted.”

  I told her the whole thing. Minus the almost-sex on the dining room table.

  “Me and your father have really screwed you up, haven’t we?”

  “Ma, it’s not—” No rebuttal came because it was true in a sense. But being a grown up meant I chose what I let affect me and how I allowed it to shape my life. No one made me close off like I was damaged goods. That was all on me. And I was only just realizing how badly I’d become with my emotional blockade.

  I was sitting on the closet floor under the row of Gray’s Tom Ford suits if I needed more proof on how extra I’d become.

  While an amazing guy was out there probably thinking I was nuts and wondering how to get rid of me.

  “Nothing is unsolvable, sweetie, if you talk it through. Gray is a reasonable man, and if you mean what you say that you care for him, then tell him your fears.”

  Trust mom to be logical now… I hmphed and got to my feet.

  “Can I confess something? Your man came to see me several days ago.”

  What? This was the first I was hearing of it.

  “To the house?”

  “Yes. I was in the middle of … well, you know how my days are, sweetie. Feeling sorry for myself as per usual. And there he was at my door, large as life wearing sunglasses and smiling holding a sack of baked goods from that bakery we love and a bunch of white tulips. We had a nice long talk. He cares deeply for you, sweetie. Trust in that, trust him with your fears. He wanted to know everything about you and was so thrilled with my stories. He offered any help that I might need, and he didn’t appear to judge that you have a mom who has been less than for years.”

  God. That’s just like Gray. My heart cinched in my chest until I felt suffocated in intense feelings.

  “Ma. I love you, you know that, right?”

  “Oh, sweetie. I know it. I love you, too. And I’m going to try to get myself better again. So, I can be in my girl’s life. I miss you. I know I don’t say it, and I’m so grateful for the woman you are and will be. You can have love in your life, sweetie. Don’t let my mistakes with your father ruin a good thing, thank god I divorced him because that man didn’t deserve either of us.”

  Mom was throwing out all the surprises tonight. “Wait, what? You divorced dad? I always thought it was him. So, you mean you’re not waiting for him to come back?”

  “I can see why you’d think that. But no, sweetie. I wouldn’t have that man back if he came gift wrapped from Chanel. He left us when we needed him because he was spineless. I knew where he was. That was wrong of me never to tell you, but I didn’t think he merited someone as bright as you in his life if he wasn’t going to make the effort first. I divorced his ass and I don’t regret it.”

  Wow.

  The lesson here, kids, was communication.

  “I love you, ma.” I told her again.

  “Same. Now go and make it up with your man. I think I’ll go and brew a coffee like your nana used to make with a dash of cinnamon and invite Sasha over to eat the last of the lemon squares your Gray brought.”

  My Gray.

  I sighed as clarity returned like a long-lost friend.

  Settled.

  Calm.

  And in the moment.

  I ambled out of the closet, through the bedroom, dropping my phone onto the dresser before I exited into the hallway to hear … nothing. Was he even still here?

  I get on my own damn nerves sometimes.

  I freaked out on my guy for the silliest reason, if he threw my ass out into the rain I’d probably deserve it.

  There’s never any logic to an anxiety meltdown. Only, I wished the clarity came with less fucking mortification.

  Gray was the most patient, kind and generous man I’d ever met.

  He’s sweetness itself.

  I’m surprised I didn’t have a mouthful of cavities.

  And he set my heart on fire.

  The man was a fucking saint to put up with me.

  Seriously, I’m an annoying, hard hearted, difficult woman to deal with.

  Either a saint…

  My heart went ballistic beneath my breastbone, but I didn’t allow my anxious nerves to deny the words I was thinking.

  Or he was crazy in love with me.

  ~*~*~

  GRAY

  Blunt nails dug into my hands.

  There was no point in pacing. She’d walked by me into the bedroom like she didn’t even see me.

  So, I waited. And didn’t do what my head was screaming to do and that was hunt her down.

  The pain permitted my lust to recede a tiny portion—enough so that I could breathe logical sense and I didn’t throw the glass coffee table out of the way and attack her down to the floor like I wanted to.

  My blood heated to a boiling point so fast I was almost exhaling steam. Every muscle in my body screamed to gather her up against my chest so my arms would be happy holding her, push my mouth against her ear and list the potential consequences of her actions.

  I’ve never been a man given to dominating women, although being the aggressor was a given.

  It’s in my DNA to lead.

  My fantasies of her changed shape, texture. They were indecent and dirty before, but now I’m . . . consumed in her and frustrated by her kicking me aside and locking me out. The hunger brought those fantasies to life also forced me to step back, she’s hurting clearly. I’d even say grieving in some form and guarding her heart against attachment, which was both understandable and annoying because we lived together, and she hadn’t put two and two together and realized we were serious and here for everything, good or bad.

  Sitting on one of the island stools, my shirt rebuttoned, hands dangling at my side.

  Brooding.

  That’s when I caught the pad of her quiet feet.

  She hovered in the doorway.

  The way India let go of an exhale all the way across in the living room was ample enough clue that whatever panic had set in thirty minutes ago finally passed.

  I watched her in the same way a lion watched a gazelle.

  A palpable love beating inside my chest.

  She’s compelling, and I’m inexplicably drawn to that woman.

&n
bsp; So much so I get unsettled being away from her for too long.

  It’s humbling and intoxicating all at once to see her return to me one breath at a time.

  “Are you mad at me?” She asked, leaning in the door arch. Hesitant to approach. Her smoke-dripped voice latched my heart and squeezed tight.

  She couldn’t see my devotion to her yet.

  What could I say? Yeah, I was pissed to a certain degree, but that’s the selfish motherfucker side to me, that man who wanted everything the moment I laid eyes on her. It doesn’t work that way for India and I understood that now.

  Emotions were her kryptonite.

  But she’s here. We live together.

  We have the best fucking time, so for now, that’s enough.

  She didn’t smile when I angled my head and turned my eyes on her.

  Still wearing the robe, she’d piled her hair on top of her head, making her look younger than her nearly twenty-seven years.

  Her birthday was coming up soon. I had plans for us. Correction; I have plans.

  “Come here, sweetheart. Until our bodies are touching.”

  One shuffle of her feet and she stopped, an impish smile of stubbornness followed when she sensed I wasn’t mad at her and if she could also guess how fucking desperate I was to get my hands on her then she was using it against me. Tormenting the bull with a red flag.

  My headstrong girl.

  “Do you want me to come and get you? I will, India. Then you’ll see what happens when a desperate man gets his hands on a body like yours. When I touch that kind of heaven there’s gonna be no stopping my hunger dripping all over you.”

  Her smile went nuclear and she had the sass back in the sway of her hips. “Pretty please, Grayson.”

  “Do you recall the last time I said please, and you told me no? It doesn’t endear me to be lenient now, baby-girl.”

  She huffed, and I laughed before I could stop it.

  Please? She could have anything she wanted just by pointing to it, but I admit I liked her asking me.

  Why was that? I was hardly dominant before her, but the kick of adrenalin in my gut that fired directly to both my heart and dick at the same time when she crawled out from behind her walls and asked me for something was more than stimulating.