I feel heat creep up my neck. “I just meant — I don’t know. That’s disciplined,” I say, trying not to come across as flustered as I feel, like I definitely wasn’t picturing him wet and half-dressed at dawn.
“Routine helps,” he says.
“Of course.”
He takes me through the game room. There’s a pool table, a wall-mounted TV, a bar area, shelves lined with footballs and framed jerseys and photos. Some are from his playing days. Some are of him with Penelope. One is of him holding her when she was tiny, his expression soft in a way that hits me right in the sternum.
I look away before he catches me staring too long.
“Let me show you upstairs,” he says.
The staircase is wide enough to host a wedding procession. I trail behind him, trying very hard not to notice the way his sweater pulls across his back when he moves. The man has the shoulders of a Greek god and the emotional availability of a bank vault.
At the landing, he turns left, and I nearly walk straight into him.
My hand catches his forearm to stop myself from falling backward down the stairs.He catches my waist at the same time.
Everything in me goes still.
His fingers span my side so easily it feels obscene. Heat bleeds through the thin fabric of my top where he’s touching me. My pulse goes from a cool sixty-something to a number that would make a doctor panic.
“Shit, sorry,” I blurt.
“I’m sorry.”
But he doesn’t sound sorry. He sounds rough. Distracted.
For one suspended second, neither of us moves.But then I step back, and his hand drops away.
He clears his throat. “Your room’s down here.”
He opens a door at the end of the hall, and I step into what he refers to as asecondary master suitelike those are normal words people say.
The bedroom is bigger than the open-plan living room and kitchen that Aaron and I used to share. There’s a canopy king-size bed with a wooden headboard, dark walls, tall windows, a dresser, a reading chair in the corner, and a soft rug in the center.
A bathroom sits through an open archway with a soaking tub, glass shower, double vanity, and enough counter space to host a small conference.
I just stand there with my mouth slightly open.
Grayson leans one shoulder against the doorframe, hands crossed over his chest, expression unreadable. “It’s nearly as big as mine, so you should be comfortable.”
“This is…” I laugh because there are no words left in my brain and I don’t know how to process this. “This is really nice. I was on a couch until this morning, so this is... an upgrade, to say the least.”
He pauses for a moment and I don’t let myself turn to see the probable hint of pity on his face. “It’s yours as long as you want it.”
The words carry the hint of a lack of finality, and it shouldn’t sting.
It still does, though.
He steps back from the doorway. “There’s closet space in there. Bathroom’s stocked, but if there’s anything specific you need, tell me. I had the basics put in.”
“You had the basics ’put in’,” I echo, turning toward him.
His brow lifts.
I shake my head. “No, it’s just— every time you say things like that, I feel like I’ve been hired by a supervillain.”
That gets me another almost-smile.
