“I don’t cheat, and I’m not sure I’m comfortable that you’re ok with cheating, no matter what my asshole brother is up to. And if you tell me you have an open relationship, I am absolutely not comfortable with that either. Sorry, but I don’t share well.”
The pit that had been hanging out in her gut the last few days melted away in an instant. An ironic chuckle escaped her lips. “I think I like you even more now. Grady, I’m not cheating.” She knew he couldn’t see her in the darkness, but she tried to look him in the eye, so he knew she was dead serious. “Cheaters have their own special level of hell, and open relationships are disgusting. Why do you think I pulled away every time things got close?” Her teeth vibrated so loudly she could hardly get her sentence out.
She could feel his confusion. And his shiver.
“Wait, I’m not following. At what point do you consider it cheating versus not? Do you wait until you’ve said your I do’s, or is it once the ring is on your finger? I note the cheap bastard didn’t even buy you a ring.”
Tone clipped, shoulders tight, he was clearly slipping into that temper. Very understandable. Dense, irritating man. With his odd relationship with his family, she had little doubt he had self-confidence issues. “No. No. Grady. First, we wereneverengaged. Second, and most importantly, Ryder and I broke up. It had been coming on for a while. Since before I met you. That’s why I said it was complicated when I saw you at the skating rink, and I’ve pretty much been working on ending it since. This trip was supposed to save our relationship, but I was already realizing it wasn’t salvageable. Ryder said he’d told you.”
Her palm rested on his chest, and she could feel his heart accelerating under her fingers.
“What? When?” She couldn’t miss the exasperation, the hopeful confusion in his voice.
Taking pity on him, she wanted to get it through his thick skull that he wasn’t a cheat or a fling. “Okay, I admit I kissed you before we officially broke up. Wait, I’m backing up a minute. I had planned to end things the night after we rode together, but you know how hard it is to pin down Ryder to sit still and pay attention. Then I meant to end it the night he took me out to dinner, but he told me you were on a date and I got jealous and sad and lost the nerve. Anyway, after we kissed, I knew I couldn’t go another day with things the way they were, so I ended it the next morning. I couldn’t... it was physically painful to pull myself away from you. Hell, at the skating rink, I watched you getting into your car and I started to go after you, but by the time I worked up the courage... you were gone.”
Long pause. Hopefully she hadn’t bungled it too terribly. Finally, he asked, “So, you’re not engaged to my brother?”
“No.”
“Wait. He told me something about ‘we’re done.’ Wow, that was about Ryder-level of communication. That night when I... at the billiard table, you said you were never engaged, and the more I thought about it, I convinced myself I’d heard wrong. Then when he was making out with the stablemaster, I assumed you had some open relationship or something.”
“He was what? That slimy bastard. Although, I’m hoping to be doing a lot more than making out with his brother in the next few minutes. What I’m trying to tell you is he and I were over before we said the words. Honestly, we were barely more than roommates. I never loved your brother, and I’m pretty sure he’s figured that out about me, too. We were convenient. And then... getting to know you, feeling this breath-stopping, gut-wrenching fluttering in my chest and total loss of thermoregulation whenever I’m around you—”
His hand that had stilled at her side, squeezed gently in sweet contact, his thumb brushing along her skin. “Then you... You’re not...”
She could feel the moment it really sunk in. Poor guy. “I want you. Only you.” She pressed her defrosting lips against his before he could doubt again. Although, the car was finally warming up, surrounding them both with a penetrating warmth that tingled deep into her skin.
Slow and steady, he kissed her with a testing curiosity. His fingertips trailed along her jaw.
“Say it again,” he said, smiling against her lips.
“I want you,” she murmured.
“So if I hadn’t left the skating rink in such a hurry, you would have come after me?”
“My hand was on the door.” She nipped at his lip. “And if you hadn’t invited us out with your friends that night, or gone out on that date the next night... really, it’s your fault it took me so long.”
Hand on her back, he whispered, “I’ve never been so miserable as I have been since meeting you.”
Impatience taking over, she wiggled out of the blankets and wrapped her legs around him. “Is it bad that I’m pleased about that?”
He tugged her up against him and grinned. “As you chose wisely in the end, I’ll let it slide. This time.”
Building, urgency mounting, he kissed her back with a pent-up hunger, quenching the thirst she’d been struggling with for days. Tilting her head back, he deepened the kiss and poured everything into it that he’d been holding back before.
Breathless, she demanded one more answer. “Were you going to tell me how you felt, or just sit back and let me marry your brother while he’s nailing the stablemaster behind my back?”
He chuckled against her mouth. “That night at the billiard table, I had meant to talk it out with you, but, well, I was distracted. You looked amazing in that dress, by the way. Anyway, then I felt like an ass for taking it so far and tried to give you space. And then tonight, I came home to hash it out with you. My plan was to convince you to dump his sorry ass and give me a chance. Plus a fair amount of groveling for leaving you like I did. That’s when I heard Sasha and him making out in her office.”
“Heard?” She teased, expecting him to correct his statement, that he saw the pair. “How did you know it wasn’t me?”
He moved downward, his icy cold hand sliding her top up. Shifting lower, his breath hot against her cold skin, his mouth opened over her breast and took the tight bud in his teeth, then sucked her hard until she let out a gasp. She felt his grin pressed against her breast. “That’s how.”
For a moment, she considered smacking him, until he pulled her top the rest of the way over her head and continued right where he’d left off. His breath against her, he circled the tight nub and took her breast into his mouth, pulling, and again, she moaned as he sucked and tantalized.
No longer cold, from the heater or his touch, Claire couldn’t stand the remaining clothes that separated them. Grady released her long enough to peel off his briefs.
“Damn this darkness. I can’t even find you.” His deep laugh vibrated through her. “There,” he said as he found her and nipped the side of her breast.