AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What are your plans for your pleasurable trip?” The smirk is back, and I’m like putty in his hands.
“Forgetting who I am…”—I hold up my glass to him—“and drinking lots of champagne.”
His eyes turn quizzical. “Why forgetting?”
I snap before I can hold back, “Oh Cash, let’s not do this.”
His eyes soften. “Do what?”
“Pretend we care. You’re good-looking, I’m clearly interested, and like I said, I’m forgetting this week. So, if you’re trying to find out if I will spend the next three days in bed with you, we can talk. If you’re going to try to talk to me and pretend you want to get to know me, I can go back to sipping my champagne and reading.”
My eyes don’t leave his as I speak. I have summoned my inner hussy, and in another life I might be embarrassed by my forwardness, but in this moment, after my heart and my self-worth have been trampled by my ex, I feel no shame.
His eyes hold mine for a beat, and then he raises his hand and grazes his fingers against the side of my face until he’s cradling it. My eyes close from the gentleness of his touch. When I open them again his face is closer to mine, only inches really.
“I’d like to help you forget,” he says smoothly, and then he moves closer and kisses me. It shocks me completely. I’ve never kissed someone this quickly, let alone a stranger on a plane, and definitely not someone as good-looking, smooth, and dare I say, kind as this man. It’s just a brush of our lips against one another, and then he moves back, but in that moment I feel a stirring that I haven’t felt in a long time.
Lust? No. Want? No.
Hope.
Chapter 2
Cash
This week has been a complete shit show. My entire life fell apart, and then before I could even wrap my mind around what it all meant, my grandmother directed my driver to take me to the airport. I didn’t even know where I was going, just that I have this one weekend to relax before my family's needs will control my every move, including the women I date. If not for the fact that the brunette who occupied my seat on the plane looked more lost than I felt, I’d probably have ignored her. But I’m quickly learning that you don’t ignore a woman like Grace.
And she is all woman. With curves, and sass, and this attitude that tells me she won’t put up with bullshit. Mine or anyone else’s. For a man who has to control everything in his life, it was nice for a few moments to be told what to do.
For years I’d been planning to take over my family’s company. I’d always known this day was coming; it’s honestly been a dream. But now that it’s here—now that the reason is because my grandfather doesn’t have all his faculties and I have to take over—I’m not sure I’m ready at all.
But I’m the only one in my family who can handle this. Sure, Carter is older, but he’s got too short of a fuse to be in charge. And he doesn’t want it. He prefers to handle the deals, to take the risks, but he doesn’t want the pressure of running the family company into the ground.
We need you, my grandmother had said, her pale blue eyes beckoning me to grow up. You’re ready, Cassius.
I stare down at the small hand which is engulfed in mine, and I squeeze. I may not be ready to take over my company, but I am ready to get lost in this woman. In fact it’s exactly what I need. I need to hand over my control, lose myself in her body, and just forget everything else for the next few days.
“The car should be right out front,” I say to her as we walk through the airport hand in hand.
She raises her eyes to mine—they are a mixture of brown and purple, and I’ve never seen anything quite like them. Violet eyes. She’s as rare as the color. “Of course, you have a car picking you up,” she teases.
Grace seems to have me pegged as a rich playboy. She’s not wrong. It’s endearing how right she is about me. The honesty, the directness, and also the raw vulnerability I see when I look at her drew me in almost immediately.
I’m surprised when Grace tells me she doesn’t have anything but her carry-on. But not nearly as surprised as when she tells me she’s staying at the same hotel as I am.
Coincidence? Perhaps. All I know is that this weekend away, my last hurrah, is looking up.
She looked at me strangely when I took her hand as we walked down the airport corridor, but I just acted as if I was in a rush and wanted her to keep up. Truthfully, I couldn’t stand being a few feet away from her now that I’d had three hours sitting so close to her coconut scent. It surrounded me and made me want to sink against her. She has this way about her, this I’m older and wiser than you, naughty boy, which is doing something crazy to me.
I’ve always been the one in control, even in my family though I’m not the oldest. Carter is thirty-seven, Catherine, or Cat as we call her, is thirty-four, then me, and Chase is the baby and he’s twenty-seven.
I’m thirty and almost positive Grace is older than I am.
It’s rude to ask a woman how old she is, and I feel like she’ll scold me if I do—not that I’d mind—but I’m sure she’s over thirty. If I had to guess I’d peg her at Cat’s age.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asks, while pulling her hand from mine and pushing her hair out of her face. I watch as she pulls an elastic off her wrist and lifts her hair off her neck and into a ponytail. Visions of pulling on it while she’s on her knees flood my brain. I can’t wait to taste her, to see her writhing below me, and hear her moaning my name.
“How am I looking at you, Grace?” My lips tip up in a smirk. I can’t help it, I love when she calls me on bullshit, and I’ve only just met her.
