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Michelle
The hours of the day slipped by so quickly, and I tried to cling to every second. I knew Gray was set to leave tomorrow night, and once he left my life would be a lot less exciting. A lot more lonesome. Part of me wished he would stay. Not so I could have a roof over my head, but so I could have the company. I enjoyed his presence. His essence. His smiles and his laughter. I enjoyed our playful banter and the rising tension between us. I’d never known excitement like the kind he brought into my life. It was a domesticated type of excitement. The kind someone got by sitting next to an old friend.
It felt like I’d known Grayson a lot longer than I actually had.
He didn’t have to stay forever. Just a few more days. A few more moments with him and his smile. Him and his eyes. Him and his soft touches. Or maybe he could stay a few more weeks.
Or a few more months.
You know, just enough time to say goodbye properly.
But I didn’t want to say goodbye. I didn’t want to wave him off. I didn’t want to pack up my duffel bag and sleep in one of the stale extended-stay motels in the middle of town. I was fooled, though. Gray hated this place. I saw it in his eyes whenever he walked outside. I didn’t know why he had such a hatred towards this town, but if it was anything like the reason I had for hating my hometown, I understood. I understood why he didn’t want to stay. Why coming back held so many painful memories for him.
He’d had one foot out the door the entire time he’d been here. I had tomorrow with him, and that was it.
So I needed to make the best of it.
“Need help cooking dinner?” I asked.
“Nope. I’ve got this. You sit down and take a load off.”
“You’re the one who did all the delivering,” I said. “I just drove.”
“But you’re the one who wiped away all those tears today.”
“On the last round, sure. But not all of them. Come on, what do you need help with?”
“I’ve got this, Michelle. I promise. It’ll be quick. Just a basic chicken with vegetables. Go wash up or something.”
“You saying I stink?”
He grinned over at me and it filled my stomach with butterflies.
“Uh oh,” he said.
“What?” I asked “What’s wrong?”
“Does this look familiar to you?”
He held up a piece of paper and I squinted my eyes. I walked into the kitchen and took it from him, my eyes flickering over the list.
Shit.
We’d forgotten one of the lists.
“I’ll go get the town map,” I said.
“I’ll put this on hold and go get the highlighter,” Gray said.
“Wait a second. What’s this? Holy shit.”
“What?” he asked.
“It says on this list from the will that Anton has a first edition of War & Peace in here somewhere.”
“Let me see that.”
He took the list from my hands and began to read it. His lips moved with every word and I found myself entranced by their movements. His brow furrowed deeper as the paper dropped from his vision, and I forced my eyes up to his so he wouldn’t catch me staring.
“The only place I can think of that we haven’t dug through yet is the attic,” he said.
“There’s an attic to this place? I only knew there was a basement.”
“Come on. We need to go find this stuff,” he said.
I followed Gray as he maneuvered through the house. I walked down hallways I’d never had occasion to be in before. Most of the work I did for Anton was outside labor. Every once in a while I’d come inside and dust down, but the house didn’t need much more than that. A little sweeping. Some mopping. Washing the windows from time to time.
I saw the string hanging from the ceiling as Gray reached for it.
The attic door creaked and a staircase unfolded. Great. A hot, stuffy attic in ninety-degree heat just as the sun was beginning to set. This would be a fun little scavenger hunt on an empty stomach. And mine was beginning to growl. I hoped and prayed the man in front of me scaling the built-in stairs couldn’t hear it.
How embarrassing would that have been?
The humidity in the attic was stifling. It was hard to breathe. Hard to see. A small light flickered on but didn’t lend much to the room. And the boxes that surrounded us were written on in Russian. Compared to the expanse of the property, the attic was small. It didn’t branch out any farther than the hallway and it was hard for Gray and I to maneuver around one another. Dust flew everywhere and sweat was already trickling down my back. Worse yet, the sweat that glistened against Gray’s skin made my cheeks tint with heat.
It was hard enough keeping my hands off of him. Why the hell did I have to be stuck in a stuffy, small, sweaty attic with him?
“I don’t read Russian, so all we can do it open the boxes and dig through them,” he said.
“You’ve got the list?” I asked.
“In my back pocket, yep. Let’s find the book first, then we’ll go on down the line. Maybe if we dig, it’ll be easier to come back across things.”
“Fine by me.”
Anything to get me out of that attic sooner.
Slowly, we started to find the missing pieces. Sweat dripped off the tip of my nose and my clothes began to cling to my skin. Gray walked past me, his leg brushing my back. He opened up the small window at the other end of the attic to try and get some air flowing, but it wasn’t much use. The air outside wasn’t much cooler than the air in the attic. Especially since hot air rose. We popped open boxes and sneezed with the dust, and soon we were finding the rest of the gifts stuffed at the bottom of all of those boxes.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Grayson freeze. I looked over at him and watched him finger what looked like a photo album. He opened the cover and peeked inside, then quickly shut its contents.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Just some pictures.”
“What are they of?”
“We can talk about it later. We’ve got too much to do before I head out tomorrow.”
I bit down on the inside of my cheek to keep myself from reacting. I couldn’t show him how disappointed that statement made me. He sounded a little too happy about it. To be leaving this town. To be leaving me.
Turning back to my task, I continued digging through the box as I panted for air.
I got up and walked over to the window, feeling stifled by the confines of the attic. I closed my eyes as the open window caught a breeze. My skin cooled. My forehead stopped sweating. My legs felt their strength returning.
But then I felt something dab against my forehead and my eyes whipped open.
“Just me,” Gray said.
He slid the soft, silken handkerchief against my skin and I closed my eyes. I smelled Gray’s sweat. I felt his body heat pounding against me. My cheeks flushed at the intimacy of it all. His hand smoothing the material over my skin. Trying to help me cool off and catch my breath. My pulse quickened. My stomach curled in on itself. It became hard to breathe again. Hard to think straight. He smoothed the handkerchief down my cheek and slid it underneath my chin.
Then he crooked his finger and gazed into my eyes.
Our lips were inches apart. His hand was trembling against the underside of my chin. He was about to leave and I’d never see him again. Never hear his voice or see his face or feel his presence or bask in his warmth. And once—just once—I wanted to feel him. One last time, I wanted to feel his body against mine.
So I closed the space between us.
My lips pressed into his and his hand fell from my chin. I closed my eyes, my mind swirling as I committed every little detail to memory. His lips tensing. His body teetering. His fists clenching and the handkerchief landing on my foot. His hands sliding up my thighs and grabbing my hips. His face pressing against—
His tongue slid across my mouth and I instantly allowed him access.
He pushed me into the attic wall as my head fell off to the side. His leg parted mine, grinding his knee into my sweating pussy. The wind filtering in from outside wrapped around our bodies as his hands fisted his shirt. He pulled it over his head, breaking our kiss just long enough for me to get a glimpse of him.
A glimpse of that beautiful torso I’d seen the very first night I’d encountered him.
Sweat dripped down our bodies as he peeled my clothes away. Ripped my shorts down and tore my panties clear away from my body. I gasped at his attack. Squealed at the way he ripped my shirt over my head. At the way his lips devoured my neck. He licked at my droplets of sweat and followed them beneath my shirt as he slid it above my head. We stripped one another down, quick and torrid as we filled the attic with our heat. Surrounded by dusty boxes with only the flickering bulb and the moon to guide our way. His tongue traced my tits. Dipped between my breasts and wrapped around my engorged nipples. I reached down and grabbed his cock, pumping him and feeling his thick precum land into the palm of my hand.
Shock rolled through my system as he fisted my thighs. He lifted me up and pinned me against the wall, sliding his hands up and down my body. Shivers ran along my arms. My thighs tightened around his tapered waist. His lips crashed against mine as his hands gripped my ass, and the strength of his body pinned me so deep into the wall I thought we would fall through it.
But I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t stop myself. There was no going back, and I didn’t want to. As his cock twitched against my ass and my hands slid down his rock hard back, I gasped for air and lapped at the divots in his collarbone.
“Gray. Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”
Then without warning, he slid his cock into my body. Flooding me with white hot pleasure that blurred my vision and burst colors behind the backs of my eyelids.
He was thick. Long. Pulsing with want and engorged with a desire to be close to me. And as his forehead fell to mine and his hips began to roll, all I could do was cling to him.
Because I was helpless to Grayson.
I was helpless against his attack. The attack I’d been dreaming off since I met him.
