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“This is promising,” he says sarcastically.
I giggle. “There’s a point, I promise.” I take a deep breath. “He was my professor. At the time.”
“You’re not a stranger to illicit affairs, then,” he half-teases.
“No. Not at all.” I laugh self-depreciatively. I shake my head. “I was young and I was blind. I was enchanted by the fact that he wanted me around all the time, always worried about if I was okay and wanting to know who I was with. It took me longer than I care to admit that he wasn’t sweet and caring and loving. He wasn’t a worried lover. He was a controlling jerk.” My eyes drift away as so many memories flood through my mind. Moments I’d think fondly of him now painted in a whole new light.
“ Paul, that was his name, by the way, wanted me to live in his golden cage. I was a pretty, young thing that he owned and controlled at will. A sort of trophy. A young woman with her whole life ahead of her that was under his spell and control. His thrall.” I take a moment, breathing deeply. Reminding myself I’m no longer there.
“He consumed me. I was at his disposal almost constantly in all ways. At first, a few friends tried to warn me, but I was so in love with him, or so I thought, that I dismissed their worries, and little by little, they started being around less and less. It’s okay, I thought, I don’t need anyone else if I can just have him. And boy did I have him. Every second of my free time was to be spent with him or for him. Time went by and my life was classes, studying, and Paul, nothing else.” I take a deep breath. “Then, one day I woke up and it dawned on me. Two years had gone by and I hadn’t seen my family. I hardly ever talked to any of them for more than a minute or two at a time. That’s when I realized what he had done to me. Keeping me from my own fucking life. So, I left.”
Grant and I keep solid, steady eye contact.
“All that is to say, I’m stronger than I was then. Smarter. I wouldn’t let you use me up like that.”
“I wouldn’t want you to.”
I smile. “That’s already a big difference between you and Paul.”
Silence. Grant eyes me from across the room. “You really want to do this.”
I nod. “I want to try. Don’t you?”
Grant’s brow bends. He takes a deep breath and then crosses to me. He sinks down onto his knees before me and wraps his arms around my waist. “Harley?”
“Yes, Grant?” I carefully push pieces of his dark hair out of his eyes.
“I want you.”
I grin. “I wantyou.”
“Not just for the baby. I wantyou. All of you. However you want to be.”
“Same,” I reply, cupping his cheeks in my hands. I carefully outline the rim of his bruised eye. He did that for me. “That’s exactly how I want you, too.”
“And it might be crazy, but I love you. I just know it.”
I can’t believe my ears. After all of this, Grant not only wants to give things a shot between us, but he loves me? This is what I’ve been praying for every night without even realizing it. Dreaming of Grant at all hours of the day. This is my wildest dream come true. I kiss him and the fireworks go off.
“Does this mean you love me too?” he mutters into my mouth.
I laugh. “Yes, obviously.”
“Say it, will you? Say it for me.”
“Grant, I love you.”
“Mm.” He kisses me deeper. “God, one more time.”
“Grant…”
“Yes…?” He leans closer to me, pushing me back onto the couch.
“I love you.”
“Fuck, you don’t know what that does to me.”
I laugh. “Easy, you can’t go full force on me like before.”
