What the hell?
“Are you safe?”
When she didn’t immediately answer, Gray sat up and gripped her hand tight in his.
“Meredith, are you safe?” The timbre of his voice rumbled like thunder. Meredith sat up too, the distance between them narrowing a little.
“Yes,” she said, nodding quickly. “Yes, I’m safe.” She seemed intent on reassuring him, but her efforts only made him more uneasy.
He frowned, studying her face for a long moment. It told him nothing. “Would you tell me if you weren’t?”
He watched her weigh the question, and she took entirely too long to respond. “I don’t know.”
Hell, no.
Gray shook his head. “I don’t like that answer.”
She tried to give him a stubborn smile, but it wobbled on her lips. “I was pretty sure you wouldn’t, but it’s honest.”
Gray felt like a pair of hands were closing around his throat. He wanted to make demands. He wanted to tell her she had no business living in a house where people mistreated her. He wanted to insist she let him take care of her.
But he had absolutely no right to say any of that. After his reckless kiss, he was lucky she agreed to stay on as his assistant. He was luckier still that they could remain friends. The fact that she might want more gave him hope — a lot of hope, if he were being honest — but nothing was guaranteed.
Instead, he forced himself to lie back down, but he kept his eyes locked on hers and her hand tight in his. If she was going to let him hold it, he wasn’t going to miss a moment. Following his lead, she lay down too, and she didn’t pull away. In fact, they were closer now, but empty space still separated their two sleeping bags.
The realization of this strange and wonderful development descended on him, taking away some of his worry. If she let him get this close, maybe it wouldn’t be so long before she let him in.
He tested the waters.
“Promise me that if you ever need anything from me — anything at all — you’ll ask.”
Hesitation etched her features. “Gray—”
“Promise me.” He was pushing his luck, and he knew it, but they were talking about her safety. He hated the thought that she lived with an asshole ex-boyfriend. He hated it more than he could show, but he could wait for her to sort out her own affairs.
As long as she was safe.
He held her gaze for a long time. She must have sensed his resolve because she sighed once and nodded.
“I promise.”
THE DOGS’ WHININGwoke him.
As usual, morning arrived with the sensation of a vice around his temples. But, at the moment, the feeling that competed with this was the soft warmth stretched along his body. He opened his eyes to the faint morning light and found Meredith tucked snugly beneath the cradle of his right arm, both of them still stuffed into their sleeping bags. Even with the insulated polyester barrier, his leg lay hitched over hers, and the length of his sex, as hard as iron ore, pressed against her bottom.
Despite the pain in his head, Gray smiled. In the liberty of sleep he had reached for what he wanted, and the way Meredith nestled into him, her unconscious self didn’t seem to mind.
He was about to pull her tighter and sink his nose into her hair when Juno’s whine pitched, and he heard the latch of the front doorsnick.
“Hey, guys…” Bax’s gentle greeting made Gray’s spine stiffen.
Fuck.
“Meredith,” he breathed. She stirred against him, and he prayed he’d have another chance to wake next to her again — when his brother wasn’t intruding. Bax could not know they had crossed into this unknown territory. Gray felt sure his brother would disapprove and interfere, and he wanted to protect Meredith from that kind of scrutiny. And he had to admit to himself that he wanted to minimize the risk of Bax outing him. “Meredith, we need to get up. Bax is here.”
Even though he whispered, she bolted upright and spun to face him wide-eyed, the fabric of her bag swishing noisily. “Holy shit!” she hissed.
A smile twitched at his lips at the sight of her sleep-mussed hair and the flush that already colored her cheeks, but he knew instinctively that she wanted to avoid discovery as much as he did. Even though she worked for him, Bax had been the one to hire her. She’d deferred to him on more than one occasion, and knowing Meredith, she wouldn’t want to disappoint him.
