I look back at him, heart in my throat—and catch the flicker in his eyes just as they drag up to meet mine. Something carnal pulses there. Dark. Focused. His jaw tightens, like he’s deciding whether to keep touching me or devour me whole.
His fingers work higher, firmer now, kneading with purpose. Every stroke feels like it was made to unravel me. My breath hitches as a jolt of pleasure sparks up my thigh, and my nipples tighten beneath his shirt—embarrassingly obvious, but I can’t bring myself to care.
Because he’s watching me.
Not politely. Not innocently.
He’s watching me fall apart—and he likes it.
“Your skin is so soft,” he murmurs, his thumbs tracing slow circles around my lower leg, that inch gradually higher with each pass.
The heat from the ointment leaving the burn in my calf forgotten as his hands slide towards my inner thigh, just a few inches of being dangerously close to where I'm growing embarrassingly wet. My legs part slightly of their own accord, an invitation I'm not brave enough to voice.
“Grant,” I whisper, my chest rising and falling rapidly.
His fingers pause at the sensitive juncture where thigh meets center, just mere inches from my clit that's now throbbing with need. I can tell by his heavy breathing that he's fighting the same battle for control I am. His thumb makes a small circle on my inner thigh, so, so close to where I want him that I have to suppress a whimper.
When he looks up, his eyes have turned molten gold, burning with barely restrained desire. “Is this okay?” he asks, his voice a gravelly whisper.
I nod, not trusting myself to speak without begging him to touch me where I'm aching most. His hand slides higher, fingers grazing the edge of my swimsuit underneath his shirt, then retreating back to safer territory in a teasing dance that has me practically squirming beneath his touch.
“Grant, you’re driving me crazy” I whisper, unsure if I'm asking him to stop or continue.
His gaze locks with mine, searching for permission or resistance. I give him neither, caught in my own internal tug-of-war between desire and self-preservation.
His hand slides lower down the back of my knee, but his eyes never leave mine. “You scared me today,” he admits quietly. “Seeing you floating there, not moving... I couldn't go through that again. Losing someone to that river.”
The raw honesty in his voice breaks something open inside me. “I'm sorry,” I say, reaching out to touch a strand of hair that fell over his brow. “I didn't think anyone would see me.”
“I see you, Mia,” he says, turning his face, taking my hand to press a kiss to my palm. “That's the problem. I see you too clearly.”
Before either of us can make the choice to cross that final line, a phone rings shrilly from the guest room—my phone, with the special ringtone I've set for Suzi, my coach.
Chapter 23
Grant
She’s still on the call with her coach—her voice low, clipped, all business now. That effortless switch she does, flipping from soft to steel in a second. It should make her feel distant, it shouldn’t draw me closer, but it does; watching her command a conversation feels intimate in its own way.
I back out the doorway.
Not because I want distance.
Because I need a minute to clear my head before all this want turns me reckless.
Walking down the hall, my boots silent for once, as and step into my bedroom and shut the door behind me like it’ll keep the thoughts out. Like it’ll keepherout.
It doesn’t.
Laying on my bed, I stare at the ceiling again like it’s got answers etched into the woodgrain and try not to think about how she looked when I touched her calf—flushed, breathing shallow, pupils blown wide like she was right on the edge of unravelling.
I felt it too. Still do.
Counting the knots in the wooden beams for the third time. Eighteen. Still eighteen, just like five minutes ago. Just like fifteen minutes ago. My body is wound tight, muscles coiled with tension that has nothing to do with rodeo injuries and everything to do with the woman down the hall.
The memory of Mia's skin beneath my fingertips haunts me. Soft. Impossibly soft. The way her breathing changed when I moved higher up her thigh, the slight parting of her legs—an invitation I was too much of a gentleman to accept without explicit permission.
“Fuck,” I mutter, throwing my arm across my eyes.
