| |
Michelle
I sat on the couch and started reading a book I had grabbed when I left Andy’s. My eyes kept flickering to the clock, taking in how late it was. Gray still hadn’t come back in yet, and I wondered where he was. Then again, I didn’t know why the hell I was waiting up for him at all. He kissed me in the kitchen and still walked away. He got a taste of me and he still rejected me. What did I owe him?
Everything.
He was letting me stay here free of charge. At least until he left.
He was so damn hot. So interesting. I willed him to come through the front doors. I wanted to talk more about Anton. About his memories and his flirting and his kind smile. I wanted to do all of it while smiling and laughing with Gray. I wanted to be next to him. To be beside him. To feel his hands on me again. The second he kissed me, heat had pooled between my legs. My panties grew damp just thinking about all the things I knew a man like him could do. He kissed me with more passion than Andy ever had, and I found myself craving it.
I brought my fingers up to my lips and relished the phantom presence of the memory.
Despite my efforts, I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about that kiss. About how it made me feel and how I hadn’t wanted him to leave. Even as my eyes fluttered across the same words I’d read time and time again that night, I couldn’t flip the page. Because I wasn’t focused on the book. I was focused on that kiss.
I couldn’t stop replaying it in my mind.
Even so, he had run away. Maybe he wasn’t as interested in me as I was in him. Maybe there really wasn’t a purpose to me staying up and reading a book I wasn’t really reading. If that was the case, I couldn’t blame him. Why the hell would a man like him be into a woman like myself? I had no prospects. No job. No hope of ever becoming anything. He was on the verge of going back to wherever he came from, and I was a week away from having to beg my mother for money for bus fare home.
Yet, here I was still sitting on the couch waiting up for him.
I’d seen something in his eyes at the dinner table. When he whispered the nickname Anton had bestowed upon me. It was unmistakable. I knew that I hadn’t dreamt it. In that moment, he wanted me. So why had he pulled away? The kiss left me breathless. He pulled me close to him and pressed our hips together so not even a breath of wind could have parted us.
Why did he pull away from me so suddenly?
He had a desire in his eyes. One that mirrored my own. He wanted me, I could feel it. And I tasted it on his tongue the second mine collided with his. Suddenly, the rattling of keys at the door ripped me from my trance and a smile crossed my cheeks.
Until Grayson stumbled into the house.
“Hey there, pretty girl,” Grayson said.
He was slurring his words and it tainted the nickname I’d adored him whispering to me earlier.
“Hey,” I said.
He stumbled over to the couch and plopped down beside me, heaving the cushions so much the book tumbled from my hands.
“Whoops,” he said, as a sloppy grin crossed his cheeks.
“Well, how was your evening?” I asked.
He laughed, and the smell of beer radiated from his breath. It was disgusting.
It reminded me of Andy.
“Ran into an old high school friend. Had some drinks.”
“Some, huh? You look like you’ve had a little more than some,” I said.
“The bartender strongly suggested we leave,” he said.
“So you got kicked out.”
He chuckled as his head fell back onto the cushions of the couch. I felt a frown encompass my lips. This didn’t seem like Gray at all. Not the Gray I’d gotten to know, anyway. Not the Gray I’d seen over dinner or in the mornings or out at the garage staring at whatever was underneath that tarp.
Then again, I’d only known him a few days, at most.
“Well I’m glad you had a good time,” I said.
“The—best,” he said.
Then he let out this massive belch that flooded the room with a disgusting smell. Nope. I wasn’t sitting up for this spectacle. If this was the kind of man Gray really was, then I wanted no part in it. I didn’t care for filthy, drunken Andy, and I wasn’t going to care for filthy, drunken Grayson. I’d spent more nights than I cared to admit babying that asshole during his drunken escapades. I wasn’t going to do it for a man I hardly knew.
A man I apparently didn’t know at all.
I stood up from the couch, but his hand wrapped around my waist. He tugged me into his lap and pulled me close, his beer-stained breath pulsing against my face. It was gross. I felt my stomach churning. I pressed my hands into his chest to try and get up, but he knocked them out of the way. I fell against him, my chest pressed against his, and I turned my face away as he smiled.
“I cannot stop thinking about you, pretty girl,” he said.
“Don’t call me that,” I said, as he sat up.
He started stroking my hair as I continued to try and wriggle out of his grasp.
“Grayson, let me up,” I said.
“I can’t stop thinking about you. Or your lips. Or your body. I’ve been dreaming about burying my face into those—those perfect breasts of yours. Ever since that night you crawled into bed with me. Do you know how hard my cock gets for you?”
I ripped my wrists away from his grasp and pulled away from him. I felt like I was on display. Used for nothing but my body, yet again. My cheeks flushed and I felt that shameful color trickle down my neck. How I wanted to hear those words roll of his sober tongue. How I wanted his strong grip pinning my wrists above me like the night I mistook his bed for empty.
But beer tainted my nostrils, and tears clouded my vision as I stepped away from him.
I was embarrassed. Angry. Frustrated. I wanted him. Even in his drunkenness, I wanted him. And I hated that about myself. There was something reckless in drunken sex. Something raw and passionate and unforgiving. But I wanted Gray to remember what we did, and he looked to be about three seconds from passing out. His eyes were hooded and his gaze was clouded. His body tilted off to the side as he reached out for me.
“Come back, pretty girl. Come rest that pussy on my face.”
“Goodnight,” I said.
Then I turned my back to him and stalked off to my room. I stalked off to think about the two sides of Grayson I’d come to know existed. The strong, husky, considerate side; and the drunken, horny, fuck-it-all side. I couldn’t stomach it. I couldn’t be with another man like that. Andy had given me a run for my money with that shit, and I couldn’t afford to take another chance like that. I closed my eyes and leaned against the door, then locked it for good measure.
I didn’t want Grayson barging in on me like Andy used to and getting any drunken ideas.
I tumbled my body into bed and closed my eyes. That kiss seemed so far away now. It had been perfect and had rendered me breathless, leaving me aching for more. So much so that I faked reading a damn book to stay up and see him in. He had me, hook line and sinker. Until he came stumbling through those doors and showed me his true colors.
Were those his true colors?
Or was this part of his grieving process?
It didn’t matter. None of it did. The bottom line was I’d gotten rid of Andy and I wasn’t going to replace him with another version that happened to have a decent side to him, sometimes, anyway.
I was better than that. I had to be.
I didn’t have any other choice.
“Damn it, Gray,” I said with a whisper.
Then I dabbed at a tear as it slowly leaked from my eye. Because I could still feel his strong grip around my wrists.
A grip I wished was on my hips right now.
