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“Thank you for doing that,” I say quickly, but she’s right. It is. It’s weird but still appreciated.
“The bags are by the door,” Blake offers.
A few more words are exchanged between everyone and Grayson walks them all to the door. And he does so in that controlled way I know well. His spine is extra straight. His stride extra measured. He’s owning the moment. He’s forcing his control. He’s angry. He’s really angry.
I sit down. I grab the cushion from beside me and hug it to me. I toss the pillow away. I cannot sit here a minute longer.
Rounding the table and couch, I walk to a large half window behind the living area and stand there. I know the minute Grayson returns, and not because of his soundless footsteps. I feel him. My skin tingles. My belly flutters. Don’t ask me why, when he’s angry and I’m upset, but my sex clenches. And then he’s there, his hands on my body a blessed relief, turning me around to face him. “We are either forever or not at all. Decide now.”
“Don’t do that, Grayson.”
“Do what? Ask you to marry me? Ask you to spend the rest of your life with me? Because that is all I’m guilty of right now.”
“I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to be the reason you, you who are such an amazing person, suffers.”
“I suffered without you. I suffered just hearing you say I might be better off without you. I can’t do ‘maybe’ with you. If that’s where we’re headed, you need to tell me right now. If you weren’t ready, if I pushed—”
“You didn’t. God, no. You didn’t.”
“And yet, those words came out of your mouth. Those words I never want to hear again.”
Somehow in that moment, he’s the refuge I seek and everything I’m running from. He wants to protect me. I want to protect him. I can’t be his destruction, but as I stare into his green eyes, the shadows there drenched in torment, I know that I am his refuge, too. His soul fills my soul as mine does his.
A tornado of emotion rips through me, the debris of a year of heartache and hell leaving me bleeding inside in ways that I won’t survive without this man. I throw my arms around him. “I’m sorry. I’m scared. I need you and love you.” I pull back to look at him. “I’m sorry.”
“Do you want to marry me?”
His voice is low but somehow intense, his eyes shadowed, and I feel a pinch in my chest. “I can’t believe you’re asking me that. More than life itself.”
“Then that means there is no obstacle we don’t go through together. Understand?”
It’s not a question but a demand. “I want to be the best thing that ever happened to you, not the worst.”
“You are. Ri was the problem. He still is. You didn’t do this.”
“I let him—”
“We let him. We’ve talked about all the ways we let that happen. It’s behind us. If that can’t happen—”
“It can. You’re right. I’m not myself right now. Something happened at the airport.”
His hands frame my face. “Because there can’t be an earthquake without aftershocks. You were attacked, baby. You’re human. You’re going to feel the shock and the aftermath.”
He’s right. I know he’s right. But it’s not just me feeling the aftermath. It’s him, too, and his company, and I’m terrified about just how bad those aftershocks might be when they hit. I don’t say that, though. That’s not what he needs to hear right now.
“And my cure is you. And Chinese food. I think we both need Chinese food.”
He rewards me with a curve of his sexy lips and with it, the air shifts, our moods soften. For now, we will enjoy each other. Tomorrow, we’ll fight for each other.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Mia
Grayson and I order food and then organize the bags Blake and Kara brought us. For me, I decide as I hang a few garments up, the discomfort of having only what someone else packed us is not rooted in a lack of privacy. It’s about the reasons we’re here. It’s about Ri. A memory of that stairwell, of Grayson standing in front of me and Ri behind me, punches at my mind, and I forcefully shove it aside. When I turn away from the closet and find Grayson setting up his side of the sink, that horrid moment is washed from my mind, at least for now.
Fifteen minutes later, we’ve laughed at the one razor I’m going to steal from him, and changed into our sleep clothes that are really our “before we get naked clothes.” For me, that’s boxers and a tank. For him, it’s sweats and a T-shirt. Grayson flips on the television in the bedroom to his favorite true crime channel. We have always watched the cases and each played prosecutor or defender as we litigated it as if it were our own. Tonight, the talk is of someone being shot, it’s nerve-wracking.
