I was already his. Every part of me had fallen in love with Grayson. From the way he fought so hard to keep at the top of the OML to the way he battled his demons all while taking care of me, he was pretty perfect. Even the way he brooded, sexy and distant, only made me want to snuggle up closer to him, dig through whatever blocked him from me. He was a delicious puzzle that I somehow had the answer to.
Love.
I just had to be brave enough to tell him.
I tugged at his shoulders, and he broke the kiss long enough to remove his shirt. As soon as his skin touched mine, I was gone, logical thought stripped clean like the panties he’d tossed to the floor.
His hands drifted down my body to cup my breasts, massaging and rolling just how I liked, and I gasped against his lips. “I believe I had something on my mind,” he whispered as his fingers dipped lower, stroking over my folds.
I sucked in my breath, every thought concentrated on his fingers slowly driving me mad. Then he stopped suddenly, gripped under my thighs, and lifted me as he slid down the bed. “On your knees,” he demanded as his shoulders passed under me.
My knees landed on either side of his head. “Hands on the headboard.”
I braced my hands on the dark wood, and my pulse hammered a spastic beat in anticipation. “Grayson.”
He locked eyes with me as his tongue swept across me…into me. I cried out, my fingers biting into the headboard. “I love the way you taste,” he said before working me over with his mouth.
He licked, kissed, and stroked me until my thighs began to shake. It was too much, overwhelming. When I jerked, he banded his hands around my thighs, holding me still while he took his time. He sucked my clit into his mouth, and I screamed.
Then he used his tongue to press on that bundle of nerves and flicked.
I came apart while he watched.
Grayson slid out from under my thighs while I caught my breath, laying my head on my hands. His clothing landed on the floor, and I heard the condom wrapper tear open before he was at my back.
He pulled me against him, his chest to my back, and his erection slid between my thighs. His grip was tender as he turned my head to the side and kissed my mouth, then whispered in my ear, “I love watching you come, Sam. It’s my favorite part of making love to you.”
“Do you want to know mine?” I asked.
“God, yes.”
“That first moment you sink inside me, when I have you. All of you. All of your attention, your body, your trust…you.” I rocked my hips back into him.
He nudged my entrance. “Like this?” And he eased into me inch by inch.
I moaned, my head falling back against his shoulder. “Yes.”
“You always have all of me, Sam. Every second I’m breathing, I’m yours.” Then he thrust home, burying himself completely.
I called out his name, and he kissed me again, stroking his tongue against mine in the same rhythm he kept as he thrust into me. “Headboard,” he whispered, and I complied, leaning away from him to grasp the frame.
“So damn sexy. I love seeing you like this.” His fingers dug into my hips, leaving what I was sure would be bruises, but I didn’t care. He started a rhythm that had me keening as he hit a spot. This angle was almost too much.
“More!” I cried out, pushing back to meet him with each thrust. So good. So, so good. My muscles tensed, locked. “Grayson…I need…I need…”
He growled and pushed into me one more time before pulling completely out. I almost cried at the loss. He flipped me to my back like my weight was nothing, lifted my legs over his shoulders, and kissed me as he slid back inside.
“I need to see you,” he panted against my lips. “Fuck, Sam. I love the way you feel around me.” He began a punishing rhythm, steady and hard. I kept one hand on his shoulders and the other braced against the headboard for leverage.
He cupped my cheek, dragging his thumb across my lower lip. “You were made for me.”
His declaration cut free the last of the ties holding me back. He consumed everything about me, my body, my mind, my heart. His eyes caressed me, tearing through the last of my defenses to reach my very soul. He was over me, inside me, around me until there was nothing but Grayson and the overwhelming love that burned like the most addictive drug. A love that demanded to be known and was strong enough not to need reciprocity.
I gasped, holding his stare. “I love you, Grayson. I’m in love with you.”
He paused, his chest heaving, a myriad of emotions I couldn’t name passing over his face as he searched my eyes. “Sam—”
“Don’t,” I whispered, smiling through the tears that slipped free. “Just let me love you. I don’t need anything else.” Don’t ruin this.
He kissed me deep, sweetly, but with enough heat to burn the house down around us, and then changed his rhythm as he made love to me.
Slowly, powerfully, he stroked us both to completion, taking his time to build the sweetest pressure I’d ever felt. I cried out his name, and he kissed me as I came, riding me through my orgasm until it kicked back in aftershocks that jolted me.
Then he joined me, shuddering over me as I held him. My fingers played between his shoulder blades, dipping into the hollow. When he regained his breath, he kissed me, then left to clean up.
I should have been worried, right? I’d laid my soul bare and then instructed him not to do the same. I should have been horrified that my love most likely wasn’t returned, that I still wore a second-place ribbon, but I wasn’t. I was too full of love for him, joy that I’d found the courage to tell him, to worry about spoiling it.
He came back to bed and pulled me into him, wrapping himself around me. “Sam. You…you’re everything.”
My heart warmed, expanded even more to love him even harder.
I fell asleep in his arms and woke up draped across him like a blanket.
“Morning, sleepy.” He grinned, trailing his fingers down my spine and back up. “I love sleeping next to you. I think it should be a permanent arrangement. No more of this going back and forth between rooms.”
Yes. Wait… “Is this because of what I—”
He pressed his lips to mine. “No. It’s because I want you with me, even when we’re sleeping.”
“Your room or mine?”
His eyes narrowed as he thought. “Mine. It’s bigger.”
“I would make your room a mess.”
He nodded. “Yes. I’m willing to chance tripping over your clothes if that means I know you’re sleeping here.”
“Are you sure?” We already lived in the same house, but moving into the same room felt like…well, moving in together.
“Certain.” He grinned and playfully smacked my butt. “Now go get ready so we can hit the farmer’s market. I’m thinking osso buco for dinner.”
“Ooh, that sounds like a plan!” I gave him a smacking kiss and ran to the shower.
Once I was clean and wrapped in a fluffy towel, I wiped the steam from the bathroom mirror and began my skin routine. How different this was from the first shower I’d taken here, from when I’d been scared to encroach too much on his space. Now every space on my body was deliciously sore from Grayson.
Pretty fitting.
“All yours, flyboy,” I called as I went into my room and got ready. Grayson’s phone rang, and then went to voicemail. The shower started up again as I dressed in a flowy skirt that hit beneath my knees and a cute halter top.
Grayson’s phone rang, and rang again. The shower turned off, and I crossed into his…our…bedroom, and picked it up off the dresser as it rang yet again. Three missed calls from Parker.
Something had to be wrong.
“Grayson.” I knocked on the bathroom door. “Parker’s calling, and it looks important.”
The door opened and steam wafted out as he stepped into the hallway, taking the phone. “Wonder what she’s pissed about now.”
He squeezed my hand and went into his room to call her while I searched for a set o
f matching shoes in the pile of insanity I called a closet. Two Grecian sandals later, I knocked on his door. “Grayson?”
“Come in.” His voice was tense, curt.
“Everything okay?” I asked as I stepped inside. “What?” He had a bag on the bed and was furiously packing, throwing clothes in haphazardly.
“Thank you, that will work,” he said into the phone, and then hung up.
“Where are you going?” I asked, my voice small.
“Home. I just booked a flight.” He wasn’t looking at me, too busy throwing underwear in the bag.
He zipped the bag and slung it over his shoulder. As he walked toward me, he looked right through me, dazed. “Grayson,” I called out, catching him by the hand as he passed me into the hallway. He turned, then looked down at his hand, surprised that I held it.
“What’s going on?” I stroked the rough skin of his unshaven cheek. “Do you need me? Can I help you?”
He shook his head and stepped back, dropping my hand. “That was Parker.”
“Yes?”
He looked back up, his face contorted in shock, and joy, and something indescribable as he backed away. “I have to go, she’s asking for me.”
A sense of foreboding came over me, depleting the room of oxygen and gravity. “Who? Parker?”
“No, Grace. She’s awake.”
He was gone before I could find air to pull back into my lungs.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Grayson
I parked my rental car in the hospital lot. Parker had offered to pick me up at the airport, but I had this inexplicable need for solitude.
The salt in the air tasted like a memory. Dozens of times I’d stood outside this hospital—the morning Mia was born, the day I broke my arm, when Mom had her gallbladder taken out…the night I lost Grace, but I’d never felt this numb.
Or this afraid.
Because I’d been here before, taking the call that she’d woken up. Getting special dispensation to leave the Citadel for the weekend. Rushing to her side to realize that while she’d opened her eyes, she was still comatose.
That was the last time I ever gave a thought to the hope that Grace would return to me.
I took a shuddering breath and entered the lobby, waving at the desk clerk. The elevator dinged, and I stepped inside, and then waited the torturous hours to reach the eighth floor. The doors opened, and I prepped myself to hear that this was a mistake. She wasn’t awake, they’d misinterpreted a blink.
Or hell, maybe I’d wake the fuck up.
“Gray!” Parker ran toward me, her arms outstretched.
I caught her easily, but her show of affection only cemented that I was in a dream. This wasn’t real. “Hey, Parker.”
She grinned, lighting her face in a way I hadn’t seen in years. “It’s a miracle. Just…a miracle.”
“Right,” I answered.
They were all gathered outside her hospital room—Constance, Joey, Mom, Dad, the Bowdens. Everyone was smiling, slapping me on the back as I walked through the crowd like I’d scored a touchdown at the homecoming game. They all spoke, but only certain words registered.
“Trial program.”
“Stem cells.”
“Miracle.”
“Are you okay?” Mia broke through the haze, standing directly between Grace’s door and me.
“Sure.” Because this wasn’t real.
“Gray.” She snapped her fingers in front of my face, and I looked down at her.
“What?”
“Listen. She’s awake, for now. She’s been sleeping a lot, but the doctors say it’s part of the progress. So if she falls asleep on you, don’t panic.”
“She’s been sleeping a lot… But I got the call eight hours ago, Mia. How do they know what is normal?” The fog in my brain started to lift. She’d been awake long enough to establish a normal.
“She wanted us to wait until she was strong enough to see you.”
My eyes narrowed. “How long has she been awake?”
Mia swallowed. “I didn’t want to keep it from you, but Parker said—”
I wanted the numbness back. Anything was better than the volcano of rage building in my stomach warring for control with the nausea that warned this was too good to be true, which had its own fight with the tiny sliver of hope that this was real. Yeah, numb was a hell of a lot better. “How long?” I shouted.
She flinched.
“Almost three weeks,” Mrs. Bowden answered.
I turned to face the crowd, whose smiles had all disappeared. They weren’t here to see Grace, they were here to watch me see Grace. They all knew. They knew and had only gathered here to witness this moment like we were some circus show.
The door creaked behind me as Mia pushed it open.
“Three weeks,” I growled.
“It was what she wanted,” Parker whispered. “To be strong when she saw you for the first time.”
I looked each of them in the eye. One by one their gazes dropped.
I’d fantasized this moment so many times that I’d lost count. Picturing the joy, the wonder, the amazement of her waking, calling my name. But to have them all know, and keep it from me?
This was some fucked-up dream.
“Gray?” Her voice rang out behind me, punching me in the stomach and nearly dropping me to my knees. My breath left in a rush. Five years I’d been dreaming of that voice, clear as a bell, sweet as honey, everything that defined Grace.
I turned slowly, not ready for the dream to end.
Mia patted me on the shoulder, and I stepped into the room, shutting the door behind me. I cleared the four feet of hall and she came into view.
Grace sat up in her hospital bed, her blond hair falling in perfect waves around her. Her hands fidgeted, her nervous tell. Her mouth formed a shaky smile, and her eyes… Holy shit. Her eyes weren’t just open, but bright and focused…on me.
“Hey, Port,” she near-whispered.
“Hey, Starboard,” I answered automatically. We’d never told anyone about those nicknames. Ever. So this was either one hell of a dream…or she was real.
In the time it took me to cross the room to her, every memory crashed through me. Building sand castles as kids, laughing on the beach, learning to sail. Our first kiss, our first I love yous. The fight. The crash. The blue tinge to her skin when I pulled her out of the water. The sound of her parents screaming at the doctors for suggesting organ donation. My broken voice begging her to come back to me. Making promises to her to take it all back and make it right, to God, to anyone who had the power to bring her soul back to her body. Five years of agony erupted as I fell to the chair next to her bed.
“You’re really here,” I whispered, taking her hand. She squeezed it back, and I cracked, my soul bleeding.
“I’m really here.”
My best friend hadn’t lost her southern accent.
I collapsed forward, my head landing in her lap, and she ran her fingers through my hair like she hadn’t been gone the last five years. I was six, and ten, and eighteen, and twenty-three years old all in one moment.
“I’m really here,” she repeated softly.
I let it overpower me, the gift I’d been given. She was back. She would live.
Nothing else mattered.
“Explain,” I said to the crowd of family in the waiting room a few hours later, once she’d fallen back to sleep. Watching her eyes close, surrender to sleep, scared the shit out of me. It was too close to what she’d looked like before.
“Why don’t we do this in private, Gray?” Mrs. Bowden suggested.
Miranda handed the baby to her husband and came with us into an empty room. It was set up like Grace’s, and I started pacing between the wall and the foot of the bed. “Explain,” I repeated.
“The stem cells from Amberly,” Miranda offered. “We’d contacted the trial program at the University of Texas at the beginning of the pregnancy, and when Amberly’s cells were a match, they agreed to let Grace int
o the clinical trial. She’s their first success.”
“And you didn’t think to tell me?” God, I needed a run, or a punching bag, or something, anything to let this energy out. I felt like a caged tiger, desperate to rip something to shreds, confined to a barred cage.
“We didn’t want to get your hopes up,” Mrs. Bowden answered.
“Okay, I’ll give you that. But when she woke up? You didn’t think I had a right to know about that? Three weeks!” They both stepped back as I pointed at them.
Miranda’s gaze flickered to her mom before coming back to me. “Her waking has been gradual,” she explained. “At first it was only a half hour at a time, if that. She didn’t speak right away, either. That took nearly a week. She still barely gets through sentences.”
“I noticed.” She’d had to carefully think through everything she said before she said it. It was almost a perfect parallel to when I’d learned to read, and she’d sat patiently by my side. Now it was my turn.
“She’s still working on basic tasks. She can’t walk, or even stand for more than a few seconds.” Miranda started to fidget with her hands. Family trait.
“And what the hell does this have to do with keeping me in the dark?”
“We didn’t know the extent of her damage, if she’d remember anything, or if she’d be mentally sound, Gray. We didn’t want to get your hopes up until we knew something, and the minute she started speaking…” She glanced back at her mom.
“What?” I shouted.
They both flinched. “She wanted us to wait. She said that she needed more time before she could see you. She didn’t want you to see her that weak.”
“Weak? I held her in my arms, half dead until they could get to us. I have rotated her for bedsores, changed out her catheter bag, checked IV fluids and feeding tubes for five years! I deserved to be told, and you know it!”
Miranda nodded, but it didn’t soothe the ticking time bomb approaching detonation in my chest. “Three weeks. I’ve never gone more than three weeks without seeing her…” Everything in me went deadly still, and my eyes locked onto Miranda’s. “You knew. When you told me to live my life, to soak in my sunshine, to not come until October. You knew this was the plan.”
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