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He tossed a towel at me, breaking me from my stupor. I blushed, dabbing the water from my skin and clothes.
“I can see right through that little tank top,” he mused as he walked into the laundry room adjacent to the kitchen, whistling loudly. He came back out in a fresh pair of athletic shorts and a fitted tee shirt, tossing me a shirt of his to wear. “I couldn’t find swim trunks for Day and didn’t want him running around half naked and getting sunburned,” he explained as he uncovered a few steaks he had resting on the counter.
I walked through the kitchen and toward the half bath, shedding my wet tank top and pulling on the shirt he’d given me.
It smelled like him… like whatever woodsy cologne he wore that I loved, and something clean, like laundry detergent. I sniffed the shirt, then looked at myself in the mirror, noticing the color in my cheeks.
“Good Lord,” I hissed at myself, then trudged back into the kitchen.
Grant was outside firing up the grill, yelling something at Day, who was now sprinting by the house in the opposite direction he’d gone the first time, Jenny at his heels.
I asked to help, but Grant refused, and I spent the next half hour rocking in the porch swing while he grilled steaks and vegetables and told me all about the last two days he’d spent with Day.
My heart was in my throat as I listened, and even more so when Grant finally caught Day and made him sit down long enough to eat a few bites of vegetables, and to my massive surprise, an entire steak.
I’d never seen that kid eat so much in my life, especially something other than chicken nuggets.
This has been good for Day. So, sogood.
Granthad been good for Day.
The evening faded into dusk, then full night, and I found myself on the porch swing again, Day fast asleep with his head in my lap.
“Here,” Grant said, a dishrag over his shoulder as he gently scooped Day into his arms. He met my eyes, and I felt like my heart was going to explode in my chest as he said, his voice low and gravely, “You should just crash here tonight. I’m sure the bunkhouse is hot as hell.”
“Okay,” I managed to say as I followed Grant into the house and watched him lay Day on the cushions under the fort. He tucked him in, and my entire body reacted.
Grant walked back over to where I stood under the archway to the dining room and paused beside me.
“There’s a bathroom upstairs, and some extra clothes in the laundry room if you want some shorts to sleep in. They won’t fit you but, well, it’s better than the denim you’re wearing.”
I turned to him, standing so close I brushed his chest with my shoulder.
And then I reached up and brushed a rogue golden-brown curl behind his ear, my fingertips lingering on his cheek. He didn’t blink. He didn’t break from my gaze as I stood on my tiptoes and…
“Thank you,” I whispered, against his lips.
ChapterThirteen
Grant
She’d kissed me, and now I was thinking like a goddamn fool about doing a lot more than kissing her again.
I spent the last hour pacing back and forth across my room, which took up a quarter of the square footage upstairs. Freshly waxed hardwood floors gleamed in the light of a single lamp on one of the bedside tables, my king-sized bed made and untouched, red comforter seemingly sizzling in the heat.
I couldn’t sleep, even if I wanted to. It was far too hot and I was rushing with heat for reasons outside of the heatwave currently gripping the ranch.
I’d kissed plenty of women in my life.
Moira’s full lips brushing over mine had been like a fucking lightning bolt down my spine.
That… was new.
“Fuck,”I whispered, running my fingers through my hair before ripping off the boxers I was planning to sleep in and changing into briefs and my jeans. I pulled a tee shirt over my head and grabbed my hat off the dresser, glancing at myself in the mirror hanging over the dresser before stalking out of the room with all the silent grace of a mountain lion.
I wasn’t going to sleep. Not with the taste of her lips still lingering on my tongue and the fact she was asleep downstairs in the fort.
I wanted her in my bed.
