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“Yes,” I whisper, and when his hand runs over my bare arm, goosebumps lift on my skin and my nipples pucker. Just that easily, I’m alive in ways that only this man makes me alive. I’m aroused in ways only this man can make me feel.
A blink of a moment later, his hand is on my breast, his other sliding between my legs, and when he discovers just how slick and wet I am, his low, guttural murmur of, “Holy hell, woman,” spreads a smile on my lips, one that becomes a moan when the extremely hard length of his erection presses inside me. His body curls around mine and even as he thrusts, I’m pressing into him.
Heat burns between us and explodes into what is almost desperation. I’m not sure if it started with Grayson or with me, but now it’s ours. We own the desperation together. It’s not until a long time later, when we stand under a hot shower again, that I really start to process how badly the events of the past few years impacted Grayson. He lost his mother. I left him. His father had a heart attack while he was golfing with him. Now he just watched a monster hold a gun to my head. That desperation started with him and I understand. That was all about how much he needed to feel me close. How much he needed to know I’m alive and well. It’s a powerful thing to be loved so deeply.
“I love you,” I say, running my fingers over the dark stubble on his jaw. “With all my heart and soul, with all that I am.”
His hand slides over my wet hair. “And I love you.”
“I know. I won’t ever forget again.”
“You don’t need to keep telling me that, Mia. We’re here. We’re together. And we’re starting fresh, new.”
“I don’t want to be fresh. I don’t want to be new. I loved the us of the past.”
“We can be both, baby.” He catches my hand and holds up my finger, showing me the ring he’s recently put back on it. “We can be anything we want to be together. And we will,” he promises me before he kisses the diamond. “Let’s go make coffee and talk about the wedding.”
“Yes,” I say, scolding myself for turning our morning into something heavy. “Let’s go make coffee and talk about the wedding.”
A few minutes later, Grayson has dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and headed into the kitchen. His departure feels abrupt and I’m concerned that there’s more going on with him, or even this Ri situation than I know. I quickly dress in jeans and a T-shirt myself, apply some make-up before throwing some product in my wet hair, making quick work of drying it. In between my rushed morning routine, I exchange text messages with my father, assuring him I’m doing well. Finally, I finger comb the brown strands of my hair to find it’s still damp, but my impatience to join Grayson has me leaving it this way.
Feeling that urgency, and the clawing sense of that man needing me, me and my soon-to-be frizzy hair hurry out of the bedroom and walk down a long hallway and round the corner to the grand living room that attaches to the kitchen. I find Grayson facing the marble island, hands on the surface, muscles bunched in his shoulders, his chin to his chest. I’m right. He’s not good. He took care of me after the shooting. He was a rock for me, but I haven’t taken care of him. That man stood there in a stairwell with Ri holding a gun to my head, afraid for me, and prepared to kill for me. How many women have a man who would kill for them? Or die for them?
I do.
I do and he’s an amazing man.
With soft steps meant not to startle him, I close the space between us, shocked when this man who is always in control of his surroundings doesn’t even know when I approach. I step behind him and wrap my arms around his waist. Or I intend to. Grayson catches me and pulls me in front of him, and suddenly I’m caged between him and the island, the intensity of his emotions crashing into me. “I want to keep you locked away,” he says, his voice low, rough, almost guttural, “to make sure no one can ever hurt you the way he intended to hurt you.”
And there it is, what I feared—his fear. My hand settles on his jaw. “I’ve told you this, but I’m going to say it again. None of us can control how long we walk this earth, but if anything ever happens to me, I’ve had the best damn life anyone could want for. Because of you. That’s how we have to live. Every day we have to be all-in, all the way.”
