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“Did you hear—?”
His hypnotizing glare stops my sentence short, as I try to stay angry and not give in to the desperation I feel to know what it’s like to be massaged by Greyson fucking Everitt.
My body hums in anticipation of his touch, almost humming loud enough to drown out my ego which wants me to send him away.
Barely realizing I’m doing it, I push the door open… a little… and then wider.
But before I let him in, I decide to get something straight again. “I don’t like charity, so don’t speak to me as if I’m some problem case. I don’t like it. Just speak to me as you would have done normally.”
“You’re repeating yourself, Indie.”
“Well, I just like to hammer things home ad nauseum until people are ready to throw me into the sea.”
As I say the word, I recall the pull of his hands as he rescued me from those cold tumbling waves the other day, and my little speech suddenly seems ridiculous.
Despite the vague note of amusement playing on his lips, he bows his head and I find myself opening the door wide and stepping inside, holding it open for him, then closing and locking it behind him.
After Micah, letting Kohl into my place and locking the door behind me felt like caging myself in with a wild animal, no matter how civilized and gentle he was. I glance up at Grey quickly, wondering what animal I’m encaged with before placing my key on the countertop of the open-plan kitchen near the door we came through.
Fran and Rami have at least one key between them so they can get in. I contemplate texting them to warn them Grey is in the house, but knowing Rami she’ll hot-foot it in here to chaperone or something. I love how protective she is of her friends, not in small part because her experiences in a highly patriarchal family were less than pleasant from what she told me, leading to her distrust of dominant men, but I’ll spare him that particular sideshow for now.
I turn on a light, lowering the dimmer so that it’s not too bright and head to the sink and pull two glasses from the rack before filling them with the filtered water from the faucet. I hand him one and watch him over the rim of mine as we both drink until the short glass is empty.
“More?” I ask as he places his glass down onto the obsidian soapstone countertop threaded with streaks of white.
He shakes his head slowly, his eyes fixed to me as if I’m the only thing in this house, as if an animal unable to take its eyes off its prey, as if he barely cares what the rest of the place even looks like… unless, he had a hand in arranging this place, something I’ve forgotten to ask him and am not sure I want to know the answer to.
“I’ll need some oil,” he says. “To massage you properly.”
Holy crap, the way he says it… So clinical. So… demanding. I keep waiting for fear to kick in like it usually does when I’m alone around men, but instead, all I feel is the good type of jittery at the thought of him touching me. Inviting strange men into my house is really not my style. Frannie is a lot more free-spirited in that department. Even before the trauma with Micah, I couldn’t sleep with men I didn’t know well. I saw about three different therapists to try to solve the problem before giving up.
I wonder for a second if I brought massage oil with me to the island, but I don’t think I did, so I reach into a frosted-glass cupboard for a white bowl and pull it out. I grab some olive oil, pouring two inches into the bowl before taking my purse from the countertop and reaching inside for a bottle of lemongrass essential oil that I brought with me to repel the numerous mosquitos and other bugs that are in heaven on this marshy island. I drop five droplets in and swirl it around with my finger, inhaling the lemony scent laced with hints of warm ginger.
I spot Grey watching my hands before he takes the bowl from me and it suddenly hits me that I have no idea where he’s going to massage me. No way in hell am I inviting him up to my bedroom. I’m notthattrusting.
Instead, I grab a large clean towel from the washing machine in the kitchen and lead him to the living room where I consider lying down on the rug.
As I turn to him, I find him looking through the glass doors onto the balcony. He unlocks and slides open the door without asking, placing the bowl onto the small wicker table before reaching up for the tie keeping the thin red drapes that surround the balcony rolled up. As I step out, the warm July air stroking my skin, he unties each one deftly.
“What are you doing?” I ask as he makes it to the final one on the far right, lowering it so that it forms a veil around the balustrade so that no one can see us.
“We’ll do it out here,” he replies, throwing the navy cushions on the double-wide lounging chair onto the wooden deck of the balcony before pulling the chair away from the wall and folding down the top half so that it basically forms a mattress of sorts.
He stands up to face me, now bathed in dim burgundy light from the moon streaming through the translucid red curtains around us. “Tie your hair up.”
His harsh tone makes me balk, stealing my breath as I struggle momentarily to feel as if I’m in control, wondering whether using your genitals to make decisions rather than your brain is really that good an idea. “Do you mind not barking orders at me?” I retort with a smile. “I’m not one of your mindless—”
I restrain myself from saying the words “subs” like I want to. It's not like we need any more sexually charged vocabulary uttering tonight.
Though being some kind of superhuman, I know he knows what I was thinking…
“Don’t make me repeat myself, Indigo. Tie up your hair. Now.”
His harsh tone sends a wave of heat through my body which competes with my indignation at being ordered about, but I pull a hairband off my wrist and wrestle with my still-damp hair anyway. I’m suddenly aware of my breasts jiggling beneath my skimpy top as I draw my hair up from behind and tie it in a high ponytail which leaves the warm rose gold ends of my long wavy hair tickling the bare skin between my shoulder blades.
“Take off your clothes,” he instructs and my heart goes from a tense jog to a full-blown sprint for its life.
“What?”
