AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“It makes me want to set the world on f
ire.” His words come softly, but the truth roars in his eyes. “To think of you with them.”
There haven’t been nearly as many men as he probably assumes, but I don’t reveal that. I can’t offer him any relief.
“You wanna know what consoles me, though?” He looks up at me, calculation in his eyes. Before I can tell him I don’t want to know, he goes on. “For one, I know when we’re together, it’ll only take once for me to fuck their memory out of you.”
I shoot him an uncertain look. He sounds fierce enough to follow through on that threat right now. I manage to snatch my wrist from his grasp. I back off his lap, walking swiftly toward the steps that will take me back into his loft. I’m only a few steps down when he calls from the top.
“It also helps that I know how much it bothers you, too.”
I freeze on the fourth step, my palm pressed to the wall.
“I don’t know what you mean.” The words echo in the narrow stairwell, sounding much more confident than I feel inside.
“The other women.” He mock-sighs behind me like he’s getting impatient. “Like I don’t see it, Bris.”
I know I should keep going, but I’m stuck on the stairs, afraid of what he has perceived. He slips past me and down onto the step below, his height still putting him eye level with me.
“You think I’m that oblivious?” He walks his fingers up my arm. “You always conveniently have somewhere to be when I’m with someone else.”
“I’m busy.” I study my shoes on the step, not looking up. “I have more to do with my life than hang around waiting for you to screw some groupie.”
“And you watch me.” He dips his head until he traps my eyes. “You watch me all the time. You can’t keep your eyes off me any more than I can keep my eyes off you.”
“You’re delusional.” I offer a hollow laugh. “Thanks for dinner.”
I shove past him, squeezing between the stairwell wall and the taut muscles of his body.
“You don’t want to know the third thing that consoles me?” he asks at my back.
“No,” I fling over my shoulder. Only a few steps to go and I’ll be in his loft and then out the door.
“They don’t satisfy you.” He plays the comment like a trump card. “Sexually, I mean.”
My hand is on the knob to his loft, but I look up at him, anger overtaking the fear and confusion of the last few moments.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” I snap. “To presume you know anything about my sex life.”
“Oh, but I do.” He takes the few steps separating us until he’s right in front of me, his hard body pressing me against the door. “Remember last year when you bought your cottage and invited us all over for dinner?”
I have no idea where he’s going with this, but I can’t pretend I’m not curious. I just stare at him, knowing he doesn’t need my permission to go on.
“Everyone was playing cards, and then I left the room and was gone for a long time.” He presses his forearm to the door behind me and over my head until our bodies are practically flush. “Remember?”
“You said my chili sent you to the bathroom,” I say breathlessly.
I'm not a great cook and was surprised the chili turned out halfway decent. Grip was the only one who complained.
“I’m sorry about that.” He grins at me, his eyes lighting with temporary mischief. “I lied. Your chili was pretty good. It really was. No, I wasn’t in the bathroom. I went to your bedroom. Ya know. To explore.”
“My bedroom?” I can’t believe him. “How dare you?”
“Desperate times call for desperate measures. I have no problem playing dirty. I welcome it actually. But I stumbled upon something in the drawer by your bed that was very telling.”
There’s two drawers in my bedside table. One holds journals and a few items that would tell him too much about my feelings. That drawer remains locked, so he wouldn’t have seen what was inside. But the other drawer . . .
“I’ve never seen so many vibrators in one place.” Grip’s grin is half teasing, half cruel. “Residential, of course. You’ve got your own black market sex store in there.”
