“So this is where you guys are hanging out,” Josh said, leaning over the edge of the pool.
Sam let her hands fall away from my neck, looking anywhere but at me.
“Hey, Samantha,” I whispered.
She jerked her eyes back to mine and raised those perfect eyebrows.
I hoisted her out of the water and tossed her into the deep end of the pool. She landed with a splash and more than one curse word while I stifled the urge to laugh.
“There’s something different about you here. You’re lighter, somehow…not…I don’t know…normal Gray.” Mia glanced to Sam, who had swum over to talk to Josh. “She’s good for you.”
He dunked Sam playfully, and she came up with a gasp.
Ice crawled through my veins, and suddenly it wasn’t the pool I was standing in, but the channel. And that wasn’t Sam laughing, it was Grace screaming. Then silence. So much silence.
“Gray?” Mia touched my arm, and I jerked. “You okay?”
I nodded and shut the past out, studying the way Sam lifted her hair away from her face. Her smile, so warm that it brought the deadest parts of me to life. She was infuriating, captivating, confusing, and worth every second. Our lines were blurring, and for every inch I backed away, she pulled me twice as close without even realizing it. Being around her was more addictive than the caffeine she survived on, and I was constantly jonesing for a hit…of her.
“I mean it,” Mia added. “She’s good for you.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not good for her.”
Problem was, I wasn’t sure it was a good enough reason to stay away from her anymore.
Chapter Eleven
Sam
“Bye!” God, where was that damn hang-up button?
Mom’s face disappeared from the screen, and I rested my forehead on the laptop for a moment. She’d been utterly disappointed in my choice to enroll in a “beneath me” community college, but she said she’d pay for it, which was more than I could have ever hoped for.
I clicked open my email and weeded through the mess until I got to a name I didn’t recognize. [email protected]. My fingers tapped absently above the keys. Get over your shit.
Right. I opened the email and my stomach dropped.
How did you like your latest rejection? Once a whore, always a whore. Too bad you can’t sleep with them to let you in. Just. Stop. Trying.
Shaking hand and all, I closed it.
It was what I deserved, right? My penance for my sin. One hundred Our Fathers and thirty-two harassing emails.
It didn’t matter anyway, right? I had a fresh start on Monday and time to rebuild myself. Yeah, until you apply at another school…or finally face it at Colorado.
Oh, I was totally pulling a Scarlet O’Hara on that one—I’d think about it tomorrow. Or never. Whatever.
But this, I could stop now. I might deserve it, but if I was going to move past it, I couldn’t have it thrown in my face every time I checked my email. I adjusted my settings and only let in known email addresses to my inbox…and Victoria’s Secret. I could never have enough Vickie’s. Or chocolate.
One click at a time, I took back this aspect of my life.
This definitely called for brownies.
I skipped down the stairs and almost ran smack into Grayson as he was coming up. “Hey!” Did that come out as breathless as I felt? The guy usually sucked the oxygen right out of my lungs the minute he entered the room, but in an ACU flight suit? Holy shit. For someone who’d never even wanted near a soldier…well, I wanted to be very near Grayson. Like within a breath. A touch. Under him. Over him. Pinned between his yards of muscle and the wall.
“Hey yourself.” His eyes lit up like he knew exactly what I was thinking.
“Good day?” I forced out.
“Great day. I passed my 5&9 test.” His eyes danced, and I found myself grinning like a lovesick moron, but I couldn’t help it. He looked happier than I’d ever seen.
“Oh yes, this is definitely a brownie kind of day. I’m going to get your kitchen so dirty.” My nose scrunched while I tried to pull off the innuendo.
He didn’t so much as flinch, just kept that intense Grayson-stare. “I have to leave in about an hour. Our flight to Nags Head is tonight.”
My shoulders stayed straight, instead of slumping the way I felt, like a balloon that had been popped. He’d just been there last weekend. “Well, Ember is on her way, so I guess that leaves more for us.” I pushed a smile out.
“Save me one. I’ll be home Sunday.”
I nodded, and he tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, once again depriving me of oxygen. Somehow he felt lighter…easier after passing that test.
We did the awkward both step to the left, both step to the right, before finding our way around each other, and I headed for the kitchen and pulled out a box of brownie mix. Eggs. Water. Oil. Easy.
So what, he was leaving for a couple days. He went home like twice a month, it wasn’t like this should have been such a shock, or even an issue. Hell, he wasn’t even mine to have an issue about. I had a crush, a stupid, inconvenient crush on my incredibly sexy roommate. That’s all there was to it.
Twelve-year-olds get crushes, not you.
I cracked the egg and poured the ingredients over the mixture after I warmed up the oven, then turned the mixer on low. My fingernails tapped out a steady rhythm on the top of it as the powder turned into deliciousness, but my brain just wouldn’t quit.
I wasn’t even staying here. This was a pit stop in the road to educational and…well, moral recovery. Grayson wasn’t staying here, either. He’d graduate flight school in December and no doubt ask to be assigned somewhere close to home.
Except that he’d just called Alabama “home.” He’d gone from calling it “here,” to home. Besides, if anything even happened between us, we’d only have six months together…not that anything was happening. Yet.
My hand slipped and knocked the lever on the side of the mixer.
“Fuck!” I shrieked as the mixer whirred a shrill pitch and batter exploded, hitting the walls, the cabinets, my face…everything. I sputtered as some landed in my mouth, and slammed my hand against the lever to turn it off.
This was going to be a bitch to clean up.
“Are you okay?” Grayson ran in, hair damp from the shower. His eyes widened as he took in the state of his precious kitchen. “You weren’t kidding about the mess.”
“Oh this?” I smiled. “It’s a new aeration technique. I totally meant to do this.” My awesome excuse died as a glob of brownie mix fell off the tip of my nose.
“Is that so?” he asked, walking over to me slowly, consuming my vision. My breath hitched as he swiped his finger across my cheek, and then licked the brownie mix off the digit. Holy hot. “Hmm… I think there’s something to be said for this method. Maybe a little more air in the batter?”
My mouth popped open. “Are you making fun of me?”
He smirked, which must have had a direct link to my panties, because they unanimously voted to drop. Now. There was sexy, and there was Grayson’s tongue sweeping across his lower lip, which was a step beyond hedonistic. His eyes took on a mischievous glint but kept the same signature intensity that held me captive, unable to look anywhere else as he lowered his face toward mine. What…what was he doing?
Do you even care? Nope. Not one bit.
“Maybe another taste to be sure?” he asked, his voice low as his lips skimmed across my jawline. “Mmm. Definitely more.” Shivers coursed down my body. Holy shit. His mouth was actually on me, and I was awake.
He flipped the switch on the mixer and chocolate flew.
“You did not!” I let my knees buckle so I slipped to the floor, leaving Grayson to be splattered by the flying confection.
“I most certainly did!” He lifted me up like I weighed nothing, and batter smacked the back of my tank top. “Man, you’re slippery.” He mock-dropped me.
I yelped, locking my ankles around his waist and my
hands around his neck. He turned off the mixer and chuckled low in his throat. “You can laugh?” I asked, yanking my head back to look at him.
“I have been known to on occasion,” he answered, that stupid, crazy-sexy smirk in play despite the chocolate on his cheeks and forehead. How the hell could someone look so hot while literally dripping brownie batter?
“I like it,” I admitted.
His smirk disappeared, and his grip tightened on my bare thighs as his gaze dropped to my lips. They parted as if he’d freaking asked them to. We weren’t just stepping out of the friend-zone here, we were on a damn missile into let-me-jump-you-ville.
“I do, too,” he whispered.
His lips moved toward mine, and I threw up my last defense, placing my finger over his lips before I was lost to all things Grayson. “Wait. Don’t you think—”
He supported all of my weight with one of his arms and gently pulled my fingers an inch away. “That’s the problem. When you’re near, I don’t think. I can’t.” He sucked my middle finger into his mouth and swirled his tongue around it, licking it clean. My entire body clenched, and my breath whooshed from my lungs as he did the same with my pointer finger, then let it slip free. “I’m so damn tired of trying to.”
He cupped the back of my neck with the hand that wasn’t cradling my ass, and brought my mouth to his in a consuming kiss. I responded instantly, opening to him as he swept inside with sure strokes of his tongue. He tasted like chocolate, and sin…and sex. Really good sex.
He growled, his hand fisting my hair to hold me to him. I sure as hell wasn’t going anywhere, not if I could get another sound like that out of him. Heat radiated from his skin to my hands as I stroked his neck to wind my fingers around the back of his head. I arched into him, pressing my breasts into his chest as our tongues rubbed and danced, setting fire to every nerve ending in my body. There was nothing else in the world for me, just the feel of Grayson under my hands, the taste of him filling me. He eclipsed everything else until kissing him was my existence.
He moved backward until he settled onto one of the tall dining room chairs and held me in his lap. My feet slipped from his waist to brace myself on the chair’s supports. I rolled my hips over him, and he hissed as I brushed against his erection.
Holy shit. He was hard. Already. For me.
I broke the kiss, pausing a breath away from his lips as we both took gasping breaths. “Grayson,” I whispered.
“More.” His eyes shone nearly silver and cut through any protest I might have managed, if I’d been thinking logically enough to even contemplate stopping.
His answer sent a spiral of pure lust streaking through my body, and I whimpered as he pulled me back to him, using his tongue and lips to caress every inch of my mouth, then biting my lower lip gently. I clung to whatever shred of sanity I had left, but it fled when he ran kisses down my neck, sucking at little patches of skin and then licking to soothe the burn. I shamelessly rocked against him, then ran my fingers down the carved muscles of his back. There wasn’t a spare ounce of fat on him. He was perfectly cut, honed, and strong enough to do whatever I asked him to.
The thought sent another surge of heat through my stomach, pooling lower.
A low rumble started in his chest as he gripped my ass, his hands squeezing and shaping me with the perfect amount of pressure. “Samantha.”
My name sounded like a prayer on his lips, like I was something worthy of worship. Worthy of him. “Say it again.”
His eyes turned hazy, and one hand drifted up my back to tighten in my hair. “Samantha.” He dragged out the syllables until it sounded like a personal request to climb him like a freaking tree and use him as my personal playground.
He tugged, arching my neck, and I gasped as he set his mouth to it, kissing lower to my collarbone. The muscles in his arms bulged as he lifted me higher, running his tongue just under the neckline of my tank top. Could he hear my heart pounding? Beating out a rhythm that was demanding—
“Hey, are you ready to head to the airpor—Oh. OH!” Mia exclaimed.
My head jerked down, slamming my chin into the top of Grayson’s head and rattling my mouth. To his credit, he didn’t drop me. This is so not happening. Heat fled from my stomach and lodged in my face. What were we? Sixteen and getting caught making out in his parents’ basement?
“Knocking, Mia.” He growled against my skin, lowering me until I was sitting in his lap again.
“It’s a kitchen, Gray.”
He rested his forehead against mine, eyes closed, and took a deep breath. Then he leveled a look on his sister that had her backing up. She got the point. Or I think she did. I couldn’t exactly see out of my peripheral vision, and there was no way I was going to glance in her direction. Not when she’d just caught me dry-humping her brother.
“I’ll just…um…make sure I got everything out of your room? Right.” She practically ran.
Grayson turned to stone beneath me and slowly turned his gaze to mine. “Grayson? What does this mean?” Oh great, ask him the ultimate girl question. Good job, Sam. “Not that it has to mean anything, right? I mean, we’re both adults…”
“Stop, please, Sam.” His hands were strong but gentle on my waist as he lifted me off him, waiting until I was steady to release me.
He stood slowly, then put the dining room table between us, just like he had the first morning we met. Did he need to protect himself from me? Wait. He kissed me first. My fingers skimmed across my swollen lips.
He swallowed, examining the table. “I don’t know what it means, and I know if I try to figure it out this second I’m going to end up saying something we’ll both regret, one way or another.”
“What the hell does that mean?” It was suddenly hard to swallow the lump in my throat. “That you shouldn’t have kissed me?” My jumping-Grayson high was quickly plummeting to a he-regrets-me low. You should be used to it. Sam, the quick-fix-regret-later gal.
“I don’t…” He shook his head. “I don’t know. I never act on impulse. I just… God, I don’t know. I have to go, our flight is in a couple hours.”
I nodded, locking my jaw, trying to trade the ache in my heart for anger. “Yeah. You should go.” Do not cry. Don’t do it.
He came around the table, and I kept my eyes trained on a large splatter of brownie batter on his shirt. “Samantha.”
I shook my head. “Just go.”
He tilted my chin up, and my rage died. His eyes said everything he didn’t, or couldn’t, and were filled with a kind of pain I couldn’t fathom but illogically needed to soothe immediately. His cheeks scratched my palms with his five o’clock shadow as I cupped them and forced a smile. “Hey. It doesn’t have to mean anything. I’m a big girl.”
“I have to go.”
“You always have to go,” I whispered, and immediately regretted opening my mouth when his eyes closed. “Grayson, go. It’s okay. We can talk, or not talk, when you get back. I’ll be here.”
He opened his eyes and held me captive with a single longing look. “You’ll be here.”
“I’ll be here. I promise. But you do have to do one thing first.” I wrinkled my nose.
“Oh?” That smirk came back out to play, and I just about sang the “Hallelujah Chorus.”
“Take another shower. You’re covered in brownie mix.”
He looked down as if he’d forgotten he wore the sticky mess and sighed. “Right. Okay.” He paused, glancing at my lips, which still hummed from his kiss. His fingers covered mine, and he leaned into my palm. “I have to go.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Yes, you do.”
He nodded, then turned and pressed a kiss into the palm of my hand. Then he left me standing in a brownie-splattered kitchen.
“I think you’re good for him, for whatever my opinion matters,” Mia said, looking over the half wall at the mess we’d created.
“I’m not sure I’m good for myself, let alone Grayson.” I wet the kitchen sponge and headed to the counter. “
But your opinion means a ton, Mia. I’m so sorry you walked in on that. Slightly mortified, actually.”
“I just graduated high school. Trust me, I’ve seen worse. Just not with Grayson. It’s nice to see him happy.” I raised my eyebrows at her, and she grinned. “Well, as happy as he gets, I guess. Oh! I almost forgot my phone charger!” She raced up the stairs.
Ellie Goulding blared out of Mia’s phone on the counter. “Mia!” I called out. “Your phone!” She didn’t answer.
I peeked at the caller ID. Parker. Grayson’s other little sister. “Mia!” I yelled a little louder. I debated for about five seconds before swiping the phone on.
“Hi, Parker, this is Sam. Mia ran upstairs for just a second, but she’ll be right back.” I kept my voice chipper. Wait, was that a scoff on the other end?
“Sam, as in Samantha. Of course.”
That tone was anything but friendly. “Did you want to hang on?”
“No need, if you can just pass a message to my sister and brother for me?” Her voice changed to syrupy sweet, and my spidey-senses tingled.
“Absolutely.”
“Tell Grayson that they’ve transferred Grace to OBH for a bad kidney infection. Her parents made sure to get the room with the pullout couch for him, since, you know, he barely leaves her side when he’s here. He’s such a good boyfriend, don’t you think?”
Boyfriend. My stomach lurched. No. Not again. The counter took the brunt of my weight as I leaned over on my elbows. “Yeah, he’s something else.”
“Well, it was nice to meet you, Sam. Tell Mia and Gray I’ll pick them up at the airport?”
“Absolutely.” My voice didn’t shake, which was hard to believe when the rest of me trembled. Breathe. Just breathe.
“Bye now!” She hung up without waiting for me to respond, and left me staring at the phone when Mia walked in.
“Sam? You okay? Is that my phone?” Her forehead puckered.
“Parker called. Something’s wrong with Grace’s kidneys, and they just transferred her to OBH. But there’s a pullout couch so Grayson can stay with his girlfriend.” That sounded normal, right? Maybe a touch flat, but at least I wasn’t screaming…just internally.
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