God help me, this man.
We start toward the riverbank. His movements are slow but sure, confidence threading through every stroke. Water beads off his shoulders, runs down his forearms, he slicks the dark strands of his hair back from his face. I should be focused on my footing or literally anything else, but I’m not. I’m watching him like I’m starving and he’s the last damn thing on the menu.
Then I take one step forward and my foot slips off a rock, slick with moss.
White-hot pain lances up my calf.
“Ahhh!” I yelp, stumbling sideways.
Grant’s there before the echo fades—arm around my waist, steady and strong and warm despite the chill in the air.
“What happened?” His voice is low, alert. The teasing gone now, replaced with pure concern. Or something else I can’t name.
“My calf,” I grit out, wincing as I try to shift weight onto it. “Pulled a muscle, I think.”
His brows draw together for half a second before he dips and lifts me like I weigh nothing.
“Grant,” I protest, arms wrapping around his neck out of instinct.
“I can walk myself.” I say through winching.
He gives me that maddening half-smile—the one that makes me want to kiss it straight off his face. “Sure you can. But humor me, Princess.”
God, the nickname shouldn’t make my stomach flip. But it does.Everythingabout him does.
He walks us further up the riverbank, boots squelching with every step, his jeans soaked and molding to those thighs that already haunt too many of my late-night thoughts. I’m hyper-aware of everything—the way his fingers spread over my thigh to hold me steady, the flex of muscle under my palm where I grip his shoulder, the faint heat radiating from him despite the water still dripping from his shirt.
And his scent. He should smell like wet denim and dirt. But he smells like heat and pine and something uniquely Grant—something that makes my head spin.
“For the record,” I murmur, breath catching as my chest brushes his, “I wasn’t actually drowning. I was doing fine before my knight in waterlogged denim decided to swoop in.”
He chuckles, deep and low, and it vibrates through my whole body. “Noted. Next time I’ll let you practice drowning in peace.”
Is snort. “It’s called static apnea,” I shoot back, unable to help the smirk tugging at my lips. “Competitive breath holding.”
He tilts his head, eyes full of that mischievous light that always spells trouble. “Sounds thrilling.”
“Says the man who rides angry bulls for fun.”
He smirks and glances down at me, and it’s like the air thickens. His eyes soften, but there’s heat in them too—a weight, a gravity that makes my breath catch. Like he’s seeing every inch of me, and not just the soaked, mildly injured version. Like he’s cataloguing the curve of my jaw, the damp strands of hair stuck to my temple, the way my pulse jumps every time he looks at me like that.
I could close the gap between us. I could tilt my head just slightly and meet his mouth. I want to. God, I want to.
But I don’t.
He clears his throat “Maybe I should carry you around more often. You’re all flushed and breathy.”
“I stretched a muscle,” I say, refusing to meet his eyes. “That’s why I’m breathy.”
He shifts his grip, tightening his arm around me. “Sure it is.”
When we reach the back door, Grant shifts me higher in his arms—like I weigh nothing, like I belong there—and frees one handjust long enough to twist the knob open. His grip tightens again instantly, possessive, protective, and scorching hot through the thin fabric of my swimsuit.
The door creaks open, and the second we’re inside, he doesn’t pause. Doesn’t speak. Just strides straight to the couch like it’s the only place in the world he trusts to hold me. He lowers me down onto the cushions with a kind of reverence that undoes something deep in my chest—like he’s placing down something breakable.
Then he leans over me, one arm braced beside my shoulder against the couch, the other still resting heavy on my thigh, fingers splayed wide and warm andthere.
“Don’t move, Mia” he says, voice rough enough to drag across skin, low enough to vibrate right through my bones. The command sends a shiver down my spine so sharp and involuntary I’m lucky I don’t moan out loud.
